Platform: Nintendo 64

Developer: Interactive Studios

Publisher: Hasbro Interactive

Release Date: October 31st, 1998

Genre: Platformer

Nerd Rating: 7 out of 10

Recently I brought out my old Nintendo 64 so I could go back and beat some of the games I never beat when I was a child, and Interactive Studios’ Glover was the first one I decided to return to. Glover is a 1998 platformer for the Nintendo 64 developed by Interactive Studios and published by Hasbro Interactive in which you play as a wizard’s magical glove who must use crystals that you turned into balls to platform through the levels in an attempt to stop the other glove which has become evil from falling into the cauldron.

I feel that the story of Glover is very dull and simplistic. I’m not trying to say that simplicity is a bad thing, but in Glover‘s case, the game is lacking due to the weak story. I can’t recommend this game if you are looking for an amazing story with good character progression, as this game simply doesn’t have it. However, the story is not intended to be the strong point of this game.

Glover has an amazing soundtrack that succeeds immensely at what it is trying to do. The soundtrack fits the levels well and helps to immerse the player into the game. The earlier level has a happy, cheerful sort of soundtrack. However, as you move on in the game, the later levels that are supposed to be intense or scary have much darker music that truly helps create the feel of this game.

While Glover is based mostly around platforming, the developers did throw in a few puzzles here and there that still take the form of platforming. For example, you will never go into another screen to solve a puzzle like you would in a point and click adventure, but instead, you will have to solve the puzzle with platforming. These puzzles did get a little tricky sometimes, but for the most part they were relatively easy enough to figure out without too much thought required.

In my opinion, the hardest part of the game is probably the timed events when you must figure out a certain tactic to beat the level in the required speed. I also had a little difficulty finding the garabs, which were basically coin-type things that you had to find all of in order to unlock the bonus levels in each world. The boss fights of Glover, however, were genuinely easy to beat. I do admire how unique these bosses were though.

One thing that I really enjoyed about Glover was the diversity in the different worlds. When you were sent to a different world, you never feel that you are in the same world as before and you don’t get bored with your surroundings. I also really enjoyed the fact that you can change the ball form to many different balls that are better at doing different things. These different forms of balls add a lot of diversity to the puzzles and platforming throughout the game.

While it is a very minimal thing, I really enjoyed playing around with the unique cheat codes of the game. It was simply hilarious to turn my ball into one of the enemies in the game, as well as take control of the ball myself instead of the glove. There were also pretty funny cheats like a spell to turn your enemies into frogs. I don’t remember too many Nintendo 64 games that had cheats from my childhood, so this was a nice little surprise when I found out that Glover did.

I found the ending credits of Glover very odd, as they were extremely long. These credits didn’t have anything at the end of them or anything like that, they were simply a very long amount of credits. Besides the odd credits and the lack of a good story, Glover was a pretty good platformer, and I recommend it if you are into platformers. I really enjoyed the ball physics and felt they were very innovative. The soundtrack and levels go really great together, and the cheats are ridiculously funny.

Sad Glover by Quadrackss – All credit for this image goes to the artist, Quadrackss!

Written by Nerd Bacon