Cham the Cat Adventure (Review): Can the Cat Match the Classic?

Nintendo’s Super Mario Land is a curious release; a launch title for Nintendo’s “revolutionary” black-and-white Game Boy, it was designed more as a showcase for the system’s abilities than a proper supplement to the Mario series. The game is short, features rudimentary, hard-to-see enemies, and is set in a peculiar realm (Sarasaland) Nintendo has never properly revisited. It was fun for the time but promptly forgotten…until Nintendo nostalgics rediscovered the game years later. It has since become the kitschy blip in the franchise, THAT other Mario game that’s weird and ugly and inferior to all the others…and yet, when taken on its own, still surprisingly fun.

The game received a more conventional experience in Super Mario Land 2. But many have wondered—what if Super Mario Land had gotten a true follow-up, one that retained the original’s quirk and simply added more levels with a few extra tweaks? A level pack, essentially? Cham The Cat Adventure provides a kind of answer.

Designed in Pixel Game Maker MV, a software suite meant for aspiring indie developers, the game features the eponymous Cham, a cat-girl treasure hunter who must jump and scamp through twelve levels of precarious gaps and baddies to procure her riches at the end. While there’s no princess to save or mushrooms to double her size, anyone who plays the game for more than ten seconds will see this greenish gem for what it is—a parody of Mario’s ancient adventure.

Except, it doesn’t poke fun so much as it respects, implementing only mild changes to the mechanics while otherwise remaining within the original’s parameters. Instead of collecting mushrooms and tossing ricocheting “superballs,” Cham grabs hearts to empower herself, going from throwing punches to striking with a whip to lashing with an extended energy blast. She can also stomp baddies, snatch invincibility-granting fairies, and perhaps most importantly, uncover hidden keys that unlock an end-of-level bonus stage. These keys also bear a second purpose—should all twelve be found, a hidden World 5 becomes playable, offering another three stages of remixed, extra-tricky platforming.

By itself, it’d be a fun if unremarkable experience…yet another faux Game Boy-styled game so common within the indie scene. But for those who know the source material intimately—the source Mario—they’re in for an increased meta-treat. Indeed, every stage in Cham is modeled almost directly after its corresponding level in Land, feeling almost like inverted equivalents. The settings are similar, the enemies and obstacles more reskin than revision, and even the music evokes the same tone and flow of its official counterpart. Instead of pipes, Cham dives down hollow logs. Every stage ends with a higher, harder-to-reach second door that contains the bonus stage. Levels 2-3 and 4-3 are horizontal shooters very similar (if slightly harder) to Mario’s submarine and bi-plane equivalents. Coins grant extra lives.

It’s an incredibly well-crafted homage…if not for the constant glitches.

Whether due to the limitations of the Pixel Game Maker engine or a lack of experience on the developer’s part, Cham the Cat is sometimes more like Count the Bugs. While the minor hit-detection discrepancies are forgivable, greater glitches like sudden, inexplicable immunity to damage lingered through multiple stages. Likewise, completing the game’s special world, at least on this reviewer’s playthrough, seemed to blot-out the ending, revealing only a blank screen while the final melody played.

The presentation is also minimal, offering a rudimentary menu for saving progress, accessing the simple manual, changing the (very nifty) dot matrix filter...but little else. At the very least, a progress grid tracking which levels had their keys found and bonus levels cleared would have been helpful. A lack of button-swapping options hurts, too, especially considering Cham’s slightly fidgety controls.

But, for those just wanting another trip to a Mario Land-esque world, well, Cham is a Champ at that; despite some clever obstacles, the game mirrors its inspiration’s lack of challenge, providing breezy fun over brutal challenge. And who knows? Considering that the rascally cat already wields a whip…could a The Castlevania Adventure homage be coming next? The Cat-vania Adventure?

In the world of indies, anything is feasible.--D

Publisher: Gotcha Gotcha Games

Developer: Retsuzan Games

System: Nintendo Switch

Release: 2021

Genre: Platformer

Finding all the keys and reaching every upper door unlocks World 5. Unfortunately, the ending scene glitched on this particular attempt.

Grabbing each level's hidden key is only half the challenge--players still have to reach the upper door. It's a neat twist on Mario Land's otherwise similar end-of-level conventions.

Mario Land gives Mario three forms--small, big, and Superball. Cham also has three "evolutions," but unlike the plumber, she can take an extra hit before expiring. (Three versus two.)

The elusive World 5 enhances the typical run n' jump challenges, coming closer to an unwieldy Super Mario Maker level.

As one of many parallels to Nintendo's effort, levels 2-3 and 4-3 are shooter stages, offering a decent respite from the normal scampering.