Developer: Data East Publisher: Data East Released: 1993 Genre: Platformer
It is always fun to look back on the mascot platformers of bygone days to see which animals were exploited for corporate gain. We had bats, opossums, bobcats, and even a god damn skunk. With that in mind I certainly did not expect a seal to become a platforming star yet here we are. The even more shocking fact is High Seas Havoc is actually pretty good! In the wake of titles that took *ahem* “inspiration” from Sonic the Hedgehog this is one of the better of the bunch and a good game in its own right.
Havoc and his sidekick Tide are pirates who find a woman named Bridget washed ashore. Bridget has a map with the location of a gem named Emeralda on it. It seems Emeralda has the power to destroy entire armies and is on the run from the pirate Bernardo. When he learns Bridget has the map he kidnaps her and Tide. Unluckily for him Havoc hid the map first and uses it to set out on his quest.
The Sonic the Hedgehog vibes are strong in this one. Put Sonic in a durag and pirate gear and he could easily pass for Havoc. Bridget is a little too similar to Amy Rose for comfort in my opinion. Havoc’s two means of attack are the staple butt bounce and a quick flip kick. All three buttons are for jumping plus you can roll into a ball to pass through tight spaces. Sadly despite the game’s cover and promotional art featuring Havoc with a sword it does not exist. It would have been cool and made some of the later parts of the game easier. The only power-ups are food to regain health, boots to increase run speed, and gems that grant an extra life for every hundred.
Beyond its mechanics the game also patterns itself after Sonic in other ways. Each level has a ten minute limit and each zone has two stages like Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Cape Sealph is very reminiscent of Emerald Hill Zone and as both are the first stages that was probably intentional. Otarucean calls to mind both the Star Light Zone with its night skyline and the Labyrinth Zone in its second act. Replace TV monitors with treasure chests and you can see how it is undeniable what audience Data East were after.
With that in mind High Seas Havoc becomes its own beast in short order. The slopes and springs soon give way to unique obstacles. The pace becomes more methodical and deliberate. The Frozen Palace packs a double whammy of frozen ice that saps health as well as electrified water that will test your patience. Mt Chester is largely a test of your platforming skill as you navigate spiked pits on the backs of insects. My favorite is the first stage of the Burning Hamlet. Here a massive fireball is chasing you and must stay one step ahead. This becomes difficult as you must use fire hydrants to slowly destroy nigh invincible fireballs. And where each encounter with Robotnik was low stakes each boss battle in High Seas Havoc is a nice battle of mechanics and pattern recognition.
There is a sharp difficulty spike at the game’s midpoint which is nothing surprising in gaming. Unfortunately High Seas Havoc goes about it in the worst ways possible. Spiked pits become more commonplace and are almost always accompanied by blind leaps of faith. Enemies are hidden or appear out of thin air which feels cheap. I would even say a lot of the later enemy placement is suspect. The game begins to feel like it is one gotcha moment after another which drags it down. And it also begins to focus on tight platforming which its controls can barely keep up with. With checkpoints becoming more spaced out t is almost as if the designers went out of their way to be obnoxious. It is sad; while derivative you can see the care put into its first half. It is a shame its second half brings it down a tier.
Despite the high challenge High Seas Havoc is still manageable, just frustrating. The game is very generous with its extra lives at the very least. You will build up quite a large buffer in preparation for the rougher areas of the game. Life restoring food seems to be paced evenly as well. So at least it seems someone was aware of the beast they created and tried to tame it somewhat. The boss battles have a similar ramp up in difficulty to the platforming. But their patterns are easy to discern leaving it all down to execution. When everything works it is incredibly fun, including some of the more demanding platforming scenarios.
In Closing
High Seas Havoc is among the platforming middle class with the likes of Plok and Bonk; a good game that had the potential to be better. It simply lacks the necessary polish that makes good games great. Still it is better than many of its contemporaries from that era and worth playing.
