Thirty Years of Plok!

[SlidellMan]

It has been thirty years since Plok was released, and it has aged gracefully when compared to many of its contemporaries. Over the years, the Pickford brothers started a webcomic with the character, and The Cutting Room Floor even uncovered at least three levels that didn't make it into the final game.

Plok - The Cutting Room Floor (tcrf.net)

Who is This Git covers Legacy Island:

 

[MrTrust]

Ha.  One of the first games I bought with my own money.  Maybe the first; I can't remember.  That bit in the middle when it goes all sepia-toned with the film grain, and you have to play as Plok's grandad was a bit ahead of its time in terms of presentation.  Great game.

 

30 years... Man, I'm old.

[SlidellMan]

It isn't often that you see Silent Film/Black-and-white-era aesthetics in video games. Come to think of it, Plok in his 4x4 would be an excellent guest character in a racing or car combat game.

[Bloodreign]

Games got an insanely good soundtrack, but is also ball bustingly hard for those who love a stiff challenge. I never saw this game for rent when I was renting SNES games, not even the local Blockbusters seemingly carried it from what I can recall. Being able to throw your arms and legs as an attack is pretty neat as well, and when you did, you'd find them hanging on closet hangers waiting for you to pick them back up.

[DeathAdderSF]

Back in grade school, Plok! was one of the half-dozen SNES games my best friend owned. We played it quite a bit, but never could get very far. It's a tough'n!

 

Years later, I asked the Pickford Bros. if Super Fighter Team could borrow Plok for a surprise appearance in PenguiNet's Zaku for the Atari Lynx -- and they agreed!

 

 

^ He appears as one of the bosses of Level Stage Zone.

Edited July 4, 2023 by DeathAdderSF

[SlidellMan]

@Bloodreign I agree, it is one of the tougher Super NES games to beat, even on Child's Play. Yet, it makes wanting to beat Legacy Island, the Penkinos, Womack Spider, and Rockyfella all the more satisfying. If the Pickford Brothers decide to update the game and release it as a ROM, I would love to see Brendammi Bog, Badream Fens, and Breezy Beach completed.

[Kirk_Johnston]

I've never really been a fan of the Euro/Amiga/DOS-style visuals in this game to be honest. Still, I can see and hear how people could appreciate it for what it is. There's a kinda proto-Rayman vibe to it at times imo.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[SlidellMan]

Kirk, I can see where you are coming from considering all the gradient shading.

[Wayler]

One of the rare cases where Tim Follin's excellent score is also accompanied by a (supposedly) good game. I have a copy but haven't gotten around to playing it because of a single uncomprehensible decision: no battery or password save. 

On 7/4/2023 at 6:24 AM, SlidellMan said:

Come to think of it, Plok in his 4x4 would be an excellent guest character in a racing or car combat game.

Not a fan of the series but I find he would perfectly fit into the cast of ClayFighter. 

[SlidellMan]

Wayler, both Tim and his brother Geoff composed for Plok and a lot of other Software Creations titles. Even without the save or password functions, I still recommend that you play it. Just start with the Child's Play difficulty before you tackle normal.

[WavyGravy]

Not only does it not have battery save or passwords, it also has limited continues! Grrr! It's a really cool game, though. It's a good little showpiece for the system in places as well. The day to night cycle early on shows off the benefits of a the SNES' massive global palette, and fighting three large bosses at once with tons of sprites flying around and no slowdown isn't something you see every day on this machine. The samples used in the soundtrack are really well done too, and clean. I wonder if they used an EQ to compensate for the BRR compression. I've heard that Energy Breaker and some other later titles did that, and Energy Breaker does have much cleaner sound than normal for the SNES.

[MrTrust]

On 7/3/2023 at 11:24 PM, SlidellMan said:

It isn't often that you see Silent Film/Black-and-white-era aesthetics in video games.

 

I've often wondered if the Cuphead folks were Plok! appreciators.  There seems to be a bit of a trend in the direction of early 20th century aesthetics.  Things like the new Mickey Mouse games, for instance.  Maybe the time would be right for a Plok! remaster.

[Crimefighter]

The game is also pretty long start to finish....

[Austin]

Pretty neat game that plays fairly well. I never finished it, but yeah, it looks like it's about two hours to complete from start to finish. I do see there are a few warps throughout the game, but I'm not sure how much time they actually save. Two hours for a challenging game with limited continues is a bit much, but maybe I'll give it a try again soon.

[The Mr. Video]

On 7/5/2023 at 8:37 PM, WavyGravy said:

Not only does it not have battery save or passwords, it also has limited continues! 

You can get more continues by completing levels without losing a life or by spelling PLOK. The problem is not only does that get really hard to do in the later levels, but also using a continue sets you back to the level you obtained it. I would love to get a physical copy of Plok for the music alone, but I'd just end up playing it on my RetroPi so I can save my progress.

[Austin]

On 7/9/2023 at 2:21 PM, The Mr. Video said:

The problem is not only does that get really hard to do in the later levels, but also using a continue sets you back to the level you obtained it.

OK, now that's just downright cruel.

[KidGameR186496]

It's one of the better but more underrated games on SNES. Too bad we don't who owns the copyright to the Game itself (Although the Pickford Bros. do own the rights to the character). It would be extremely cool to see the original Fleapit incarnation preserved to see how different it looked compared to Plok.

[dudeguy]

I recently tried to beat this game. I dont remember how far I got. I know I got to the sepia tone level. It crushed my spirit when I got a game over since I knew I had to start all over from the beginning. and i refuse to use emulators/save states

[Tanooki]

I know I'm waking a topic up that hasn't been touched since in 3 months, but I've been on the lookout for this one for a long stretch now.  Part of the reason was this old translated interview with Miyamoto from years ago.  Seems Nintendo had, himself in particular, a strong attraction to this game, so confident it would be good they had considered releasing it as the publisher.  But in time they ended up, in part, again to him, because they perceived it potentially as a possible profit cutting piece of competition with (of all games) Yoshi's Island!  He felt that after his two mario games on SNES, this was the third best platformer on the hardware.

 

I've seen the game twice in probably 5 years locally, full ebay, and jacked up stickers/shells, so call me picky I ignored it.  Found a copy though finally yesterday.  Bundled it into a lot with 2 N64 games, itself, a famicom converter version of Hogan's Alley and 20 NP magazines for $85 so I was all over that.   SHamefully only cleaned, all of it has been, and unused due to kid drama with time, homework, and other things but I want to try it today to see what all the buzz is about.

 

Anyone else have feelings about this Plok game?

[SlidellMan]

I know that it has been months since the last post, but someone released a Save RAM hack:

Romhacking.net - Hacks - Plok SRAM

It should make this game easier to finish, but be sure to read the instructions.

[Tanooki]

Damn right it would.  The game gets hard fast and not much leeway before back to the beginning which is a bad combination.  Why they didn't put a save of any sort, SRM or otherwise amezed me completely with such a eye melting quirky design choice.

[jeffythedragonslayer]

quick links to the manual now available:

 

https://sneslab.net/wiki/Plok_Manual_Quick_Links

[SlidellMan]

Zona Retro Gamer shows all the Secret Warps:

 

[davyK]

For those complaining about the continue system, the game has warps that you can use to skip ahead.  You open them by firing a number of times at the fruit in the trees at certain locations. When the warp opens you play a mini game - beat that and you either skip to the next level or skip ahead by a chunk of levels.  Almost all levels have a warp in them.

 

https://plok.fandom.com/wiki/Warps

Edited 12 hours ago by davyK