Frogger: Ancient Shadow

Reviewed by Jonathan Levy
September 1, 2006

Developer: Konami Digital Entertainment Hawaii Publisher: Konami Platform(s): PS2, GameCube, XBOX Number of Players: 1 - 4 Website: Click Here ESRB Rating: E for Everyone

Screenshot from Frogger: Ancient Shadow. Courtest Konami. Click image to enlarge.

Frogger is back with a new adventure. Firefly Swamp, Frogger's home, is being taken over by some sort of evil force. Frogger must investigate the matter in order to get to the source of the problem, so that he may bring peace back to his home.

After a little introductory cut scene, the game starts off into a tutorial. The tutorial unfortunately does not show you the control configuration, so you must either look it up or figure it out for yourself. Once learned, the controls are fairly simple to use, but awkwardly, players can't use the analog stick to move. Instead, using the directional pad will move Frogger in that direction. The L1 and R1 buttons are used to rotate Frogger clockwise or counterclockwise. With video games nowadays, I feel this is counter intuitive. As simple as the game may be, I lost countless lives due to that annoyance. The cute scene and gameplay graphics are quite blocky, which look horrendous for a game in this age. The game does include the classic Frogger for fans of the game, but it must be unlocked. There is more unlockable content such as other multiplayer modes, art, costumes and more.

I give this game a low Evolution Factor because it is clearly designed for little kids, but I don't think that they would have the patience to deal with the quirky button mapping. For a low price point I would consider purchasing the game, but it would have to be below five dollars to even consider it. The game was a drag to try to play through, so I don't see many other players having the patience to get into it. Also, once you are in single player, there is no way back to the main menu through the game itself.

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