This image is too good to write on

Earth Worm Jim (EWJ) is a game by Shiny for the Sega Mega Drive. Or Genesis for you yanks. It focuses on the titular hero in his quest to... Actually, I don’t really know his motivation; I looked in the manual and no love. Regardless, you run about from level to level, fighting bosses, platforming and enjoying a surprisingly deep silent story. Over the course of the game you will race psychotic mutant crows, kill a cat 9 times and fight a monkey-with-a-professor-for-a-head. The story, like inmost older games, takes a backseat to fun, a lesson unfortunately forgotten in some aspects of our little sphere.

Controlling Jim around is a breeze in the 2D, yet beautiful worlds. The platforming isn’t as hard as in some other games, you will rarely if ever find a part that requires pixel perfect jumping, and those longer stretches is made easier with the addition of the “helicopter head” which is like a less effective glide. Fighting is controlled with either your gun, which at every point you are reminded to conserve your ammunition, and your head, used in a whip-like fashion. While the gun is easier to use, your ammunition is severely hampered by sporadic and surprisingly few power-ups. The whip is significantly more powerful, but much harder to use; mastering the whip gleans two benefits however, firstly, you are saving ammo, and secondly, you gain a new technique for exploring. Jim wraps his little pink head around Hooks and other hook-like outcroppings to swing from A to B. Regardless, enemies will generally fall in a few gunshots if the whip is too hard.

Level 1: including part of Chad’s Memory Card moment. Sound’s suffering, but this gives you a good feel for what it’s all about.

Between levels you are expected to race Psycrow, the aforementioned psychotic crow. Why? I’m not sure, something about smuggling and such. While this can be a fun diversion and a change to grab a handy continue by collecting at least 50/60 orbs, take care to definitely win. Failure results in a boss fight that TO THIS DAY is still completely unbeatable. I refuse to use the internet and assume it’s the game’s way of saying “you’re shit.” He is immune to bullets completely and almost impossible to hit with your whip, though I remember seeing my dad knock him around like a fish. Thoroughly battered.

The worlds and art-direction in this game is fantastic. Receiving this cart only a week or so ago I was hesitant. “Do my youthful memories cloud what might have been not so good?” in short; no. If you take the time to look anywhere other than 2-3 foot in front of you, you’ll be greeted by animated backgrounds that look paint and masterfully put together. The enemies are all unique and you will draw pleasure from every frame, whether you’re knocking ten shitloads out of them or vice versa. Even the death animation is so good the edge is taken off the pain of losing that 1up. The only downer is that retro-consoles look like a shitty .jpeg of what it should look like.

The music is something I have come to drown out and it is unfortunate; this game has an unbelievably good soundtrack. The video above has the first level’s music in it, though a reduced quality version. So much care seems to have been taken, especially here, in being a game people will always remember. Hitting something will result in a satisfying whip-crack followed by a hilarious death sound. The reverse involves hearing a hilarious enemy-attacking sound followed by “AYE-OW!” in Jim’s distinctive voice.

To put it simply, This game holds so many good memories for me, It’s hard to contain my excitement thinking about playing this game! I remember all the level one secrets in a similar fashion to remembering all of the Sonic codes I ever knew and the Konami code. I’m a saddo, but I can’t give you much better advice than to petition Shiny or whoever holds the rights to put it on Wiiware, XBLA and PSN immediately. I want to see the pixels dammit. Considering the only negative point I can raise is that the Mega-Drive isn’t HDready: at the very least, buy a controller port for your computer and NOT-download it, or eBay the cart. I want to give the developers money, dammit. Capcom, do another Jim!