Review: Catman 1 - 4

Review by Webmaster

A while back, someone sent me a ROM labelled 'Catman 4'. It was a hack of FF1 that featured cat-like characters that I had no frame of reference for. I couldn't make sense of it, but it was certainly odd enough to warrant inclusion on BadHacks.net. So it was.

Still, I was curious. What was the story with this weird cat theme? After about a minute of searching I was able to get the other Catman games together and, luckily for us (?), text files were included.

So, after some playing and reading, I now present you with the history of the Catman games as far as I can figure it. Just in case anyone else is interested, that is.

Cattar, creator of this series, gives the following introduction:

These games were influenced by Jay Fenely (FIN-ELLE-E)
-Who first when't up to vito in class(20 ys ago) and said....
I TAKE CATS AND PUT THEM IN GARGAGE CANS
Then vito made a story about it!!!
It was FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is that clear to you? Good. Now we are ready to begin.

Cattar lays the story out for us:

Catman lives in detroit, HE TAKES CATS AND PUTS THEM IN GARBAGE CANS!! He and Mr. Biggles Worth, have been rivals since they were 12 years old. One day on a friday afternoon, when they were beating each other up, OUT OF NOWHERE came a huge lightning bolt out of the sky zaaaaaaaaap, it sent Mr. biggles to planet evil and catman was sent to zop.hair9b(I couldn't think of any thing else) So Catman has to find him to get revenge.(Oh and they got super human powers)

Cattar, a believer in self assessment, also provides a rating for each of the games in the Catman series. Catman 1 gets 7/10. Justified? Let's see.

Catman 1 is a hack of Metroid. Readers may be horrified to discover this, but I'd never played Metroid before. Mario, Mega Man, even Bayou Billy, yes; but not Metroid. I was still aware of its reputation as a challenging game, so I was worried that I was facing a long haul through a difficult & bizarre hack. My fears were misplaced.

Okay, the colour scheme is intimidating, but the game amounts to a handful of easily passable screens, at the end of which you are presented with this:

That's right. An immovable obstruction and the legend 'SEE2'. Soon you will learn that this type of 'ending' is common in the Catman series.

Anyway, the text file helpfully points out that SEE2 means to see Catman 2, so we know what to do.

What the hell? How did our hero get from zop.hair9b to this place? Fear not, Cattar has the answer:

Catman Continues his journey, Mr biggles worth electroshocked him so he turnes into a rotten cat untill he gets a normalizer object.

So this is Catman now. There's no denying it: he is seriously in need of a normalizer object. But where can I find one? And what the fuck is a normalizer object? After some investigation I found the answer:

I think the normalizer object needs a new name, unless Catman's normal state is as a terrifying abomination. Then again, why wouldn't it be? Let's get on with it & try to bring this monster some peace.

Catman 2 features ingenious hidden traps, like enemies that cause the game to crash when you jump on them & poorly placed blocks that are impossible to get past unless you take a different route, which you can't because you can't go backwards in SMB1.

If through some combination of restraint and luck you manage to get to the end of the first world & defeat the unaltered Bowser, this is what you see:

Okay Toad, I'll go go get Mr Biggl, whatever that means. Keeping your eye on the goal in ROM hacks is always so hard. Even on the rare occasions where a clear mission is established at the outset, it inevitably gets so warped along the way that by the end you have no idea what's going on. If you last that long.

Anyway, on to 2-1...

 HOLY SHIT! Where is the ground? All you can do is watch in horror as Catman plunges into the abyss, over and over again until your lives run out. What a cruel end. You have just experienced the second example of Cattar's frustrating game conclusions. There's no message in the sky this time around, just a note in the text file:

When you get stuck going into 2-1 then you WON.

So I won. Good news. 5/10 says Cattar. Next:  

Catman 3 is a hack of Gunsmoke. Like me, you are probably wondering 'how did we get here?' and 'what the hell is going on?'. Once again, Cattar explains it all:

Mr biggles sent catman into his time machine he was sent to the old west. Mr biggles worth has also skrued up time and every thing is out of place.

It's no wonder Catman hates Mr Biggles Worth/Mr Biggl/Mr biggles. The guy behaves like a total asshole. Well, what are we supposed to be doing here? Maybe the old Gunsmoke intro will have been altered to provide some information? 

Nope.

Looks like things are getting nastier as the series progresses. But then, the Old West was a nasty place. I think Cattar is getting us toughened up to face this new, violent chapter in the Adventures of Catman. 

Cattar was not joking: everything is out of place. How are you supposed to navigate through this hell of house-pieces and assassins? The short answer: you are not. 

See that hairy cowboy on the left side of the screen? That's Catman, stuck after the scrolling ceased about ten minutes into the game. The non-ending strikes again. Could this be the least satisfying instalment yet? I think so. Cattar agrees, giving it a measly 4/10.

At last we reach Catman 4. Cattar awarded this one 8/10, the highest score of any of the series so far. Maybe we'll actually get an insight into Catman's quest this time around, and some kind of resolution? Don't get your hopes up. 

Now he's been sent into midevil times in an mini island.

That's all we get to start with, via the text file. The opening Final Fantasy 1 spiel remains completely unchanged, so don't go expecting any orientation there.

The opening map screen is pretty similar to the original, only we start out in the forest instead of in front of the castle. What horrors lurk in these woods? 

Those fucking cat heads, again. They are absolutely relentless. Thankfully my gang of cat freaks make short work of them, and then I get to spend five minutes waiting for the multiple level-ups to flash by before I can continue my quest. 

I take our hairy hero into the castle and, thankfully, everyone is keen to point me in the direction of Mr Biggles Worth. The 'he might be hard to get' caveat has me a bit worried though. 

One short trip through a magical portal later, and I'm standing in front of a mermaid and a grey triangle. The king mentioned earlier that I should try talking to this triangle, and the mermaid is also pretty keen on the idea: 

Okay then. I oblige. What have I got to lose? 

And that's it. There's nothing left to do now but wander round the map like an impotent fool, or just shut down your emulator. Damn you, Cattar.

So, what about Catman 5? As far as I can tell, no such game exists. Cattar's accompanying text file says this on the subject:

Catman 5 (finnaly) Game going to use Pokemon Blue
The real adventure begins(not done)
Pokemap (for some strange reason) doesn't work on my computer. I have to wait till I get my new computer in april, probably a $4000 ($$$$$) one if you ask me!!!
But im still hex and tile editing it!!!

That was written in 2001. Here we are, six years later, and still no dice. My guess is that Cattar is putting the full capabilities of his $4000 computer to work on this one, and that the finished product will be a work of art. It will answer every question raised by Catman 1-4, make up for all the shoddy editing & in-game bugs, and finally, once and for all, provide us with the ending that we deserve.

That is my dream. Cattar, please do not let me down.

--Webmaster,  13/11/07