"...flagship of bad ideas done badly..."
Gameplay is pretty much nonexistent in Moonwalker to the naked eye, but extraordinarily enough there is a faint glimmer of what appears to be gameplay. You play as former popular pop icon Michael Jackson who is on a quest to save children from bad guys. Hold up! Michael Jackson saving children? That in itself should keep anyone away from this game in 2007. But yes, as ridiculous as it sounds, that's the primary goal of each level. You have these little icons at the bottom of the screen indicating how many there are in the level to save. When you find one they pop out or stand up and almost cheer MJ on by a jovial "Michael!" line. Michael Jackson saving young children-- ironically, an eerie omen for MJ. So obviously the entire objective of the game is to save these children level by level. It's so shallow it's almost an insult to someone's who has ever played anything better, which is about everyone. To save these children from the bad guys MJ has an assortment of dancing-- yes, dancing moves to take them down. Either by spin or by a dance-like kick that shoots this odd sparkle a couple feet. Or maybe go all the way by spinning then tossing MJ's cap like a frisbee. Amazingly the dance moves almost always take out foes with one hit as long as MJ's "magic" meter has some "magic" in it. He can even jump into the air and use these dancing moves against airborne enemies. All in all combat is extremely dull and almost painful, and when MJ runs out of this "magic" gauge on the bottom of the screen he resorts to these dancing/melee moves which are less effective than the "magical" dancing moves. Melee is okay against one or two foes, but when the foes stack up (and with some toting guns) it can become really frustrating. Controls actually aren't as bad as one may think for a game like this, but good controls do not make a game, let alone a good game. So needless to say Moonwalker is one of those games we look at and say: "Nope. That game was a really bad idea." It makes things even worse when the protagonist of the game is the antagonist of a serious issue years down the road. It almost makes one wonder if Michael had a hand in its development process, which in my opinion, I think he did.
Graphics are certainly nothing to praise Moonwalker about. Even for the Genesis the game lacks anything great in the way of environments or screen effects. Character models are done pretty badly, with the only exception being MJ himself. Foe models are varied sometimes but mostly you'll be dancing your way through a horde of recycled thugs, some of which are carrying guns. Children models seem to resemble little cheerleader girls with pom poms. Bizarre. Dancing moves are okay, but again absolutely nothing special. Environments are a hodgepodge of obstacles MJ must jump over or climb, and they don't look good or even nice for that matter. You'll often be able to open doors or windows with a dance move to find a little child in "need" of "saving", a thug, or nothing. Graphics fall flat in Moonwalker.
Sound is surprisingly the best aspect of the overall game, but it still is terrible. Beginning with in-game music, there is some. Several of MJ's songs can be heard in-game like "Bad", "Smooth Criminal", "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Another Part of Me", all of which are instrumentals only. That part is managable, but when it comes to SFX Moonwalker trips and falls. MJ'll utter little quips like "Oooooh!" when he does dance moves, and that's about it from MJ. As I mentioned the children will cheer "Michael!" when he rescues them. Other SFX aren't even worth my time and text to expound on them.
Value is zero to put it bluntly. Back when it was released it was zero, and now in 2007 it remains zero. I seriously doubt it would be worth anything even with Michael Jackson's likeness on it. And if you do buy it, shame on you because you'll only get about ten or twenty minute's worth of enjoyable playtime with MJ's lame moves and the shallow goals. Even if you did manage to beat the game there would no earthly or human reason to play through again. Believe it or not, there is a two player mode, but considering the game's value in single player it would hardly justify purchase.
Ultimately Moonwalker fails in every arena that makes a game. The primary problem with this game was the shallowness and the disturbingly prophetic objective. Yes, there have certainly been bad ideas, and those bad ideas have been put on display on garbage like this. I would have to declare Moonwalker is the game console's flagship of bad ideas done badly for generations to come.