Firstly, I want to thank everyone for subscribing to my silly little blog so far. It really means a lot! <3
If you were here for my last post, I mentioned owning Dr Franken on GameBoy as a kid and I wanted to talk more about it. I’ll be honest though, this is less about the game and more about my feelings.
Dr Franken was released on the Gameboy in 1992 and on SNES in the US in 1993 with the title The Adventures of Dr Franken.
At first glance, you might be wondering how a 10 year old girl ended up with a game definitely not marketed towards that demographic… This is completely random, but I bought it from a duty free trolley on a flight. As is the nature of the duty free trolley, there was only one game up for grabs and the spending money my grandparents had given me for this package holiday (one of those prepaid, family resort deals somewhere in Spain) was burning a hole in my bumbag before we’d even touched down.
I had to have it.
Especially since I'd played the other games I owned to death. To this day, I’m still surprised my parents let me (they even pitched in alongside my pocket money because I would not let up!) The cover art is spooky and not exactly on par with my last fave Barbie: Gamer Girl.
Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice were counted among my favourite movies back then so in some ways, baby me loving the idea of this strange, macabre game makes sense, especially with this intriguing blurb…
HELP YOUR FAVORITE BONEHEAD GET HIS GIRLFRIEND BACK TOGETHER. GO AHEAD. THROW THE SWITCH, AND COME ON A MONSTER JOURNEY WITH GOOD OL’ FREAKY FRANKY. HE’S LOOKING FOR ALL THE PIECES OF HIS BEAUTIFUL BITSY’S BODY SO HE CAN PUT THEM BACK TOGETHER ON DR. FRANKENBONE’S LIFE MACHINE. EXCEPT IT LOOKS LIKE ITSY BITSY HAS BEEN SCATTERED THROUGHOUT THE CASTLE. 7 CREEPY LEVELS. AND THERE ARE 230 ROOMS FULL OF THINGS JUST WAITING TO GRAB YOU. SO WHAT’S THE MATTER ALL OF A SUDDEN? YOU WOULDN’T BE SCARED NOW, WOULD YOU? THERE’S NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF. IT’S JUST ENOUGH TO DRIVE ANYONE BATTY.
That sounds like it has potential, right?
Unfortunately, all I remember was running around multiple floors of the castle that all looked exactly the same, following a map that made no sense at all and sometimes sometimes finding one of Bitsy’s extremities while an 8-bit version of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata plays over and over and over.
This review by The Game Hoard really hits the nail on the head…
“Dr. Franken’s early thrills of finding vital items around Frankenbone’s castle wither away as you contend with the scope of your work. Navigation is already a nuisance thanks to Franky’s poor movement ability, but with often little direction on where to head or how items relate to your work, Dr. Franken can boil down to bumbling about hoping you’ll find a room with something worthwhile.”
Ouch.
Did I mention Dr Frankenbone’s castle has 230 rooms? 230 rooms that all look pretty much the same!
Am I bad at games, or was it just bad game play?
These days, I have a decent grasp of what my capabilities are as a gamer. I'm not going to subject myself to infamously difficult games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring. Don't get me wrong, those games are probably extraordinarily good… to the people who love them. I know that I can't sit through battling the same boss 60 times, so I won't. So why does Dr Franken bother me so much? Why can’t I just let it go? It was thirty years ago, Laura!!!
Well, this is the game that made me think I suck at them and was (possibly) why I put the Gameboy down and didn’t pick it up again. But as I mentioned in my last post, I played on other people’s consoles and my sister’s PS1, yet I never asked for one myself though. A gaming console was not on my wishlist.
While I can’t replicate what it feels like to play the game on Gameboy (I’ve since played Super Mario Land many times thanks to it being available via a Nintendo Online membership on the Switch,) I have tried to play it on this emulator. And lo, it is painful.
So, I watched a full playthrough by someone who’d obviously played it a million times, and yet it didn't take away how obviously laborious the whole thing is. Even the ending, which I assumed would make it all worthwhile, is anticlimactic as Franky finally gets all Bitsy’s parts together in the lab, but before anything happens, it cuts to black. Roll credits.
Now that I’ve returned to games after a long absence, I know that narrative and puzzles are things I enjoy, especially since I know I put a lot of time and determination into Dr Franken. Even when I struggled with a janky game, I was a baby gamer and I guess I feel a little sad that Dr Franken subdued that for me.
There’s a psychology behind feeling like you’re bad at games. The way video games are essentially goal orientated and we as humans are partial to goals and not reaching them feels pretty terrible. I’ll never know if I simply hated that I couldn’t reach the end, in the same way I will struggle through a book I’m not enjoying just so I can say I finished it.
These days, I'm much better at DNF’ing the things I’m not enjoying.
Have you played Dr Franken? What did you think? Did a game ever put you off playing them? Do you have any metroidvania games you’d recommend a baby gamer? I’d love to know!
Thanks Auzin, I'm the same! I just want to have a good time and maybe not feel like a dumbass! 😂
The game sure sounds lousy but that cover art is magnificent!