Summary
Solid game without anything spectacular
The Good
Hocus Pocus has lovely graphics - it beats
Xargon,
Vinyl Goddess from Mars or sometimes even
Jazz Jackrabbit! Music is in MIDI format, and it matches levels very well. There are cheerful melodies, spooky tunes and oriental themes.
Enemies differ in various levels, so you will encounter giant mushrooms (sound familiar?) and crocodiles in first levels, and later you will face Eskimos in snow levels and bear-like monsters in scary castles.
The Bad
There are only few music tracks, so they repeat frequently. Also, level design is repetitive - for example, Arabian levels use almost the same tileset as Egyptian levels - only pyramides are absent and mosques are added.
As I said, enemies are different in various levels, however they are stick to one of three schemes: "fly-and-shoot", "walk-and-shoot" or "just-walk".
Also, there aren't any special features like map (
Xargon), 3D bonus level (
Jazz Jackrabbit) or minigame (
Commander Keen) and game can be finished very quickly.
The Bottom Line
Overall, it's a good game, however without any originality. It beats most of Apogee's EGA platform games or earlier Moonlite Software side-scrollers, but it's inferior to
Jazz Jackrabbit. Personally, I think it's worth throwing those few bucks when you find this game in a flea market.
