In my first review on this blog, I made a reference to a
game called Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy. Since then I have no doubt that my
legions of voracious readers have been frothing at the mouth to hear more of
the game.
Sphinx
and the Cursed Mummy is a game released on all three home consoles of the day
(PS2, Xbox and Gamecube) in 2003, and at some point I acquired the Gamecube
version. My memories of it at the time were that of an okay game that
apparently wasn’t particularly popular. On a whim I decided to play it the
other day to see how it held up, and it wasn’t all that bad. It’s essentially a
solid game in the Legend of Zelda formula of fighting, exploring and solving
puzzles.
But although it’s solid in just about every aspect, none
of it is quite perfect, and I was having some trouble putting to words why. The
game has a lot of little things both good and bad, and I couldn’t quite
encapsulate all its flaws in a normal style of review. This compounded with my
poor memory of the game and the fact that I never finished it back in the day
gave me an idea. I’m going to attempt a written Let’s Play of the game. For the
unaware, Let’s Play is just a general term for a person going through a video
game and transcribing their experience in either video or text. The astute
among you will note that this page you’re reading is not, in fact, a video, and
therefore must be the latter. I have no idea how long this series will last,
and I reserve the right to cancel it at any time if the game gets boring. But
that aside, let’s jump right in, shall we?
Jumping Right In…to
Lava
The game opens with some mysterious Monkey Man talking to
a Bird Man and the titular Sphinx. Apparently Monkey Man will be playing the
role of your standard issue wise mentor figure in this game. He mentions, in
the vaguest terms possible, that he senses some evil in the world and needs you
two, his strongest apprentices, to deal with it. He then teleports the two of
you to Morodor Uruk, where you can see in the distance the Eye of
Sauron Uruk Castle, which just happens to have a mysterious red energy
source at the top that shoots lasers and has nothing to do with Lord of the
Rings.
Absolutely nothing at
all
Apparently you’re here to retrieve the Sword of Osiris, a
mystical and powerful sword that is just lying around relatively unguarded outside the castle, for whatever reason.
Monkey Man then mentions that his power can only reach so far and so he must
leave you now (presumably to go do something that isn’t dying in a far-off land of darkness), and you’re given
control of Sphinx. The very first thing I did was walk a few steps to the
nearby ledge, and discover that this game does not, in fact, have invisible walls around pits.
One of the key differences between this game and the
Zelda series is that this game has a dedicated jump button, which means much
more platforming, for better or worse. At the beginning it’s probably the
latter, as Sphinx moves fairly fast and they throw moving platforms above lava
at you right away. The music restarts when you’re respawned from falling, which
is irritating because it happened to me several times. At any rate, I made it
over to a wall where my partner Bird Man (who we later find out is named Horus)
is waiting. He does that irritating thing of rival characters in games by
saying you’re slowing him down and will have to find a way up without him.
At this point a monster appears in the nearby lava pool
and hangs out his tongue. Clearly the only course of action is to walk onto it
and get eaten like a sensible person. No seriously. Once you do so the monster
spits you out and proclaims you taste terrible, no doubt seriously undermining
our mute protagonists self-esteem. However, he says that if you get him several
coconuts, he can help you get up the earlier ledge by swallowing you and firing
you out of his mouth.
Sure, you look
entirely trustworthy in every way
After an engaging couple minutes of throwing rocks at
trees to harvest coconuts, you return to the monster. Somehow beyond all common
sense this works and you catapult yourself via vomiting to the aforementioned
ledge. Walking forward you find Horus, literally steps past where he abandoned
you, unable to proceed. He’s found a special power-up (they don’t actually call
it that, but I’ve forgotten the name; in the future I should probably play and
write at the same time) that lets you walk on lava, but it’s surrounded by
exploding plants. The only other object in the room is a rock, which you can
throw. Horus is absolutely stumped by this titanic puzzle. After throwing the
rock at the plants (genius!) the two of you proceed.
That’s honestly a very
good question, Horus
By walking on lava you can unblock the flow to some geysers, which in turn can propel you further up the cliffs. However, the
lava-walking is only active for a limited time, and the game gives absolutely no
warning prior to it running out. So predictably, I take another quick magma
bath while looking around. This minor setback aside, I continue on towards the
sword.
Giant Lasers, My One
Weakness!
The tutorial stage continues along without much
interesting occurring. You learn to climb things, shimmy along edges, and a
number of other mechanics. You reach a point where someone’s tied a boulder up
on a hill, presumably because they wanted to keep their prized boulder from
running away. You then snap the ropes holding the boulder by luring exploding
enemies into them, causing the boulder to roll down the hill and provide you a
path across another lava river.
You continue along the level through some caves, jumping
over pits, swinging on ropes and clinging to ledges, same as before. Oh, except
now there are eyeball enemies in the wall that fire Ancient Egyptian Laser
Beams.
Ancient Egyptian Laser
Beams would be a great band name
After emerging from this tunnel you and Horus see the Sword
of Osiris floating atop a small cliff nearby, a bit too tall to access. After
discovering a lever which raises some platforms up to the sword, Horus runs
ahead to grab the sword, only to notice that Sauron Uruk Castle is a
chargin’ its laser beam. The even larger Ancient Egyptian Laser Beam
obliterates the rope bridge Horus is standing on but must’ve been set to stun
because he himself is fine, falling onto a platform below, which he remarks was
rather lucky.
Unfortunately, the platform he was standing on is carried
downstream to a lava waterfall, which he falls off. So clearly we’re never
going to see that character again. Yup, an important rival character pointedly
made to “die” off screen, nothing suspicious there. At any rate, you find an
alternative way around via a zip-line and reach the Sword of Osiris. Awesome,
now we can hit things!
And hit things you do. A hologram of Monkey Man (real
name later mentioned as Imhotep) appears and mentions that you need to get out
of here and that there’s a portal nearby. He hid a portal key here years ago so
if you grab that you can warp straight back to him when you get there. Along the
way there are a variety of things to hit with your sword in addition to the
previous jumpy bits. Sometimes you hit eyeball sentries in order to open doors,
and other times you engage in combat with strange Ribcage Spider Things.
I know it’s nitpicking
to point out, but how the hell do these things eat or breathe?
You find a Mysterious Amulet in a chest on the way, which
clearly has no significance whatsoever. Eventually you make it to the portal
building and see the chest where Monkey Man (I like calling him that more) hid
the portal key. However, just as you are about to open the chest the Ancient
Egyptian Laser Beam comes back for revenge! Fortunately its stun setting is
confirmed by the fact that it blows up the friggin’ wall behind you yet blasts
you into the building perfectly intact.
Monkey Man mentions that without the portal key you can’t
make it back to him, and thus are stuck here. Or you would be, were it not for
the Mysterious Amulet you found earlier. Apparently it’s a portal key itself,
though you don’t know where it leads. Seeing it as your only option, you offer
the key to the incredibly creepy portal god and he warps you to some unknown
location.
That statue behind you
is the portal god. It’s normally just a statue, but when you approach it its
eyes glow red, it moves and makes a noise akin to the heavy breathing of a Tyrannosaurs.
Then when you give it a key it zaps you with a laser on its head, which turns
you into…energy or something? Then it swallows you while doing a full-on roar.
It just takes you places, so I have absolutely no clue why the developers made
it so unsettling.
Where will the mysterious amulet take you? Could your
friend and rival Horus truly be dead? (No). What new adventures await you, and
where does the mummy come in? Will the portal god haunt your dreams for weeks
to come? (It will to mine). The answer to these exciting questions, and more,
will be revealed in the next episode of Dragonball Z this series!
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