Simple and fun gameplay, but too repetitive.

User Rating: 6 | Teddy Boy Blues SMS
Teddyboy was one of the launch titles for the SMS master-system in Europe and is a port of a not-so-popular arcade game with the same name.

Graphics:
Teddy boy is a blend of shooter and platform. It's seen from the side and scrolls in all directions. You control Teddy boy and must vanquish all foes on each level within the amount of time given. The monsters pop up from dice, lying around the stages. The sprites are very well animated and the scrolling is perfect. The sprites of the enemies and Teddy Boy himself are of considerable size. This game is very colorful and might be considered too kiddy-ish for some, but I think it suits the game nicely. The most interesting part of the graphics and level design is that it scrolls in all directions but the playing area is just a little bit bigger than the screen, which means that if you keep going left you'll end up at the same place you started after a few seconds. This might seem confusing at first but makes sense after a couple of plays. Everything is very fast paced which is cool but I feel the overall layout is lacking some. For example, you can't see your score while playing only in between levels and at the Game Over screen. The intro screen looks very dull and the menus too. The graphics do have a tendency of becoming very repetitive with the same style of destructible walls, dice etc.
70%

Sound:
A nice, fast and very hectic tune greets you at the intro screen. The soundtrack continues in the same vein but a little slower throughout the game. There's also a little jingle as you lose a life etc. The sound effects sound trivial at first but grow on you as it shows quite some diversity, for example, as you shoot the metal walls a ricochet sound is made. The sound effects and the audio in general are very good in this game.
78%

Gameplay:
Well, it's an old-school platformer and it's all about scoring points. The free scrolling adds something of a strategy element to the game, but it can't save the repetitive gameplay. All you do is shoot, jump, avoid and crush the enemies when they have been turned to a small marble after shooting them with you microwave gun. If you aren't fast enough the marble-enemies will escape and you lose some time. This simple game-mechanics might have worked very well in the arcades where fast paced simple arcade-shooters are successful, but I feel it's not enough to this home-version and it gets old really fast. Fans of the arcade game should definitely check this out though, as it apparently very close to the original. Very fun in short bursts though.
57%

Lastability:
You can see your score on the highscore table and you can try to beat it. As far as I know, you cannot beat this game. I think that the game would have benefitted from a little make-over in the design of the game in some way. The repetitive nature of the game makes this game fun for a short period of time but nothing you'll come back for year after year UNLESS you are totally into these kinds of games.
44%

Overall:
Teddy boy is a good game which, unfortunately, suffers from getting old too quickly. I mean, this game was old before it got converted with nothing added to it for the home-version. Simple and fun gameplay, but too repetitive. Very good audio and visuals.
61%