RGR Game #016: Daze Before Christmas

Santa wins with DISCO POWER!

I fear no soulless rat.

Are you following this? Me neither.

Bow down before the mighty Anti-Claus!

In keeping with the spirit of the holiday season, the next game here at Retro Gamer Ryan is Daze Before Christmas for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive, a surprisingly fun little platformer starring everyone's favorite jolly gift-delivering magic man, Santa Claus. Though Santa has a couple of momentum issues that can make for an occasional difficult jump, the controls are nice and responsive. The game's a bit on the easy side, but it throws tricky obstacles at you here and there to keep you on your toes.

Before I get to the story and gameplay, I wanted to note that this game marks two firsts for Retro Gamer Ryan. First (yeah, the first first, first first of the firsts), it's the first game for a Sega system here on the blog; second, it's the first game to be released exclusively in PAL regions. From what I've been able to gather, the game only made it to market in Australia, and in limited numbers. A Super NES port followed shortly thereafter, but also never made it to retail outside the PAL regions. Sunsoft apparently planned to release the game in the US, but the game fell victim to Sunsoft's financial problems and subsequent bankruptcy restructuring in 1994, and was never heard from again.

The story is simple enough, so I'll paraphrase the "poem" above: one day, sometime shortly before Christmas Eve, some of Santa's enemies banded together to hatch a plot to ruin Christmas for kids all over the world, most likely to make Santa look bad. They kidnapped the elves, stole some plans of some sort, and did away with all of Santa's presents. When Santa woke up, he found everything in shambles, and immediately set out to fix everything and save Christmas.

An interesting aspect of the game is the concept of "Anti-Claus", an evil, demon-like version of Santa who takes over Santa's body whenever he drinks one of the cups of coffee that appear in strange places in some levels. Anti-Claus lacks Santa's magic, instead using his sack of presents to inflict blunt force trauma on his enemies. Anti is also unable to open presents, as that requires magic for some reason. However, Anti is invincible, and only he can defeat the golem-like creatures that appear in two or three stages. The transformation lasts 10-30 seconds, depending on the settings you've chosen on the options menu, with a default of 20 seconds. Unfortunately, I found myself standing around just waiting for it to wear off, and eventually just started avoiding the coffee. Which is ironic, since I'm a pretty big fan of coffee.

Don't ask me why the levels are mixed up.

He's getting too old for this.

He's following me again, isn't he?

ALL OF TREASURES

HADOUKEN!!!

Santa Smash!

It's like the eyes follow you...

Is it safe to come out now?

All right, on to the game. Santa's adventure starts in his own house, where he's forced to do battle with possessed toys and zombie-like rats that pace back and forth staring soullessly. After navigating the convoluted structure of the house, it's time to brave the cold of the North Pole on foot, to continue rounding up presents and liberating elves. After rescuing a reindeer deep within a frozen cave, Santa continues on to a magical area with flying carpets and inexplicable wavy fabric-like backgrounds, only to emerge in the lair of the first boss, the Evil Snowman.

First Boss: The Evil Snowman

Contrary to his stage intro screen, the Evil Snowman actually isn't very large at all, and equally non-threatening. He attempts to batter Santa with snowballs, but the fire magic Santa picked up along the way makes short work of him. The Evil Snowman can't even move from his spot, since whoever built him didn't have the sense to give him legs. Then again, legs made of snow probably wouldn't support the weight of a body made of snow, so he was doomed from the start.

After defeating the Evil Snowman, Santa immediately takes to the skies, choosing England as the starting point for his present-delivery route. This results in something of a bonus stage, where presents have to be dropped into as many active chimneys as possible. I just hope the wrapping paper is fire-retardant.

Frosty would never pull this stuff.

Heh, you're not so big.

Shouldn't they have put out the fire first?

Hey, lights out!

Ho ho *glug*!

They killed Santa!

This factory makes no sense.

You shall not pass! Ow!

Santa's quest next takes him to a series of factories, probably the ones where all his toys are made. The wood factory and steel factory are of course now overrun with enemies, and part of the path has begun to flood. This is probably the toughest area of the game, since it's necessary to quickly jump between platforms that sometimes recede into the walls, sometimes move back and forth or up and down, and are very narrow. And Santa can't swim in that heavy winter suit, so one wrong move means Santa drowns. This single stage swallowed more lives than the rest of the game, and resulted in my only game over. Finally, though, I made it across safely and took on the next boss.

Second Boss: The Timekeeper

You can tell right away that the Timekeeper is a tougher boss than the Evil Snowman. See, he has legs. But he only uses them to stand while he attacks from a distance. Once Santa gets close enough, the Timekeeper shows off his real talent, the half-pipe. His arms, legs, and little winding dial disappear into his body, and he rolls right into the half-pipe, trying to crush Santa in the process. Luckily, Santa can jump right over him, hitting him with magic as he passes. After a few passes, the Timekeeper is history. Get it? History? Ahem... nevermind.

With the Timekeeper amply punished, it's time to head out and deliver more presents, this time to all the little children in Russia. This is a little confusing, though, since the first stop was England. Santa really should be moving from east to west, to keep up with the time zones. But who am I to argue with Santa Claus, right?

The Timekeeper...

master of the half-pipe!

Santa makes stops out of order.

In Soviet Russia, satellite shoots YOU down!

Will Santa be able to overcome adversity and prevail over his nemeses? Will he save Christmas for the rest of the children of the world?

Will Anti-Claus finally step up and serve a real purpose? Probably not, but for these answers and more, stay tuned for the conclusion of Daze Before Christmas!