A surprisingly hilariously hard and unique action game! One of the best SNES games.
The gameplay is surprisingly unique and extremely hard. It's not impossible, it just relies a LOT on memorization of how to complete certain levels. Extra lives and continues are very hard to come by, and if I had to say, this is probably the hardest beatable game I have ever played (Mega Man X6 is the second hardest). The thing is, you're going to be having a blast regardless. Jim gets to attack using his worm body as a whip. Not only is it a weapon, but he can use his body as a grappling device to traverse pits. He also has a raygun to shoot in every direction, which is relatively hard to master. You need to be able to use both attacks expertly to even hope to beat HALF of this game. You have an energy percentage icon at the top of your scree, and you regain health via atom-looking items. You regain ammo for your raygun through raygun items distributed throughout the levels (and extra lives through Jim heads scattered throughought each level). You also get super blasters which are harder to find but do more damage than regular blaster bullets. The bosses are EXTREMELY hard and tedious sometimes. They can get frustrating, but it's one of those situations in which you feel an immense amount of pride having beaten them. You know you're a good gamer when you can beat Earthworm Jim (and others will know you are good too). Sadly there isn't much in the way of replayability.
The story is rather silly and involves a worm that finds a spacesuit and uses it to defeat random intergalactic..."things". The story is unimportant and irrelevant, basically. You fight things as random as the cat demon from hell to snot on a bungie cord (no joke).
The music perfectly matches the silly nature of the game and is pretty catchy and memorable. The sound effects are equally effective at contributing to the humor and character of the game, but sometimes hearing "groovy" and the continue theme can get annoying after playing for a while.
The characters here are some of the most original in gaming. Earthworm Jim is simply hilarious, as is the fat junkman boss in "New Junk City", Pete from "For Pete's Sake", Snot from "'Snot A Problem", and the cat demon from "What The Heck?". They're memorable and hit the mark on every level from design to humor to sound effects.
Overall this is an extremely fun and rewarding game for gamers who are looking to play something that's actually pretty challenging (but not impossible). It's not perfect (it's a bit too hard, sometimes the controls are a little awkward when jumping around, and it has very little replay value), but it's still a game worth checking out.