Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg – GC – Review

Billy Hatcher and the Giant
Egg is more than just a game about a boy who collects giant eggs.  In
actuality, this game is more about using eggs than it is collecting them.
Billy uses them by pushing (rolling) them across the game’s uniquely designed
worlds.  It’s a strange concept, but is very rewarding, so hear me out.  Every
egg starts out the same size (roughly the size of the game’s star, Billy).
Through the collection and digestion of various fruits, the eggs will grow
until they reach their maximum, hatch-able size.  Once they’re ready to hatch,
Billy can cock-a-doodle-doo and reveal whatever is hiding inside the shell.
It could be a helpful item, a useful ally, or nothing at all!

Billy’s allies are the most
important thing you can find in an egg, and are comprised of cute, cuddly
creatures that make some of the Pokemon look grown up.  Once hatched, these
Egg Animals will team up with Billy and aid him on his quest.  Egg Animal
types include ice, wind, fire and water.

The importance of these
animals comes not only in battle, where you can attack and destroy enemies
from afar, but also from the many level barriers.  Every level includes at
least a few locked switches, ring portals or something equally important that
cannot be reached until the barrier has been removed.  The most common barrier
is fire, and we all know how to remove that: water.  So it makes perfect sense
that a water Egg Animal would be the key to eliminating the barrier.

What about a thick
waterfall?  That one’s trickier.  Water does nothing to it for obvious
reasons, and fire just isn’t strong enough.  Wind could work if the gusts were
powerful enough, but they’re not.  That leaves only one option: ice.  Freeze
the waterfall, which will cause the flow to stop.  The ice will then shatter,
revealing a new area to explore.

If you didn’t think Billy
Hatcher looked silly enough, just wait until you try on his clown hat.  The
clown hat is one of Billy’s integral items.  While wearing the hat Billy can
hop on top of an egg and ride it like a character from a Warner Brothers
cartoon.  The purpose is to cross rivers, lava and other dangerous areas that
cannot be crossed on foot.  In this circumstance, eggs can magically stay
afloat and are impervious to lava.

As mentioned before,
Billy will not always receive something for hatching an egg.  The reason is
because eggs are primarily intended to be used in their original form.  This
is where the game’s fun factor is heightened and where all of the replay value
is generated.  It’s also where Billy Hatcher becomes an unofficial side-game
to Super Monkey Ball.

With an egg in Billy’s
hands, he can roll around, run over the game’s many strange-looking enemies,
or fly through blue and green-colored rings, Sonic-style.  It’s no surprise
that the game would feel at least a little like Sonic.  Yuji Naka, Sonic’s
legendary creator, is the man responsible for bringing you this unique
adventure. 

The rolling ability
occurs both naturally and through intervention.  When rushing through the
Super Money Ball-style areas, Billy automatically gets caught up in the egg’s
spin and can no longer control its direction (similar to how Goofy used to get
caught up in a giant snowball in the classic Disney cartoons).  The player
still has control over the egg, creating a fun, down-spiraling experience.

There are some situations
in which you’ll need to perform an egg-roll but will not have the proper
ingredients to do so (soy sauce is so hard to come by these days!).  In other
words, there are no steep areas to roll down.  However, if you tap the R
button while pushing an egg you’ll notice that Billy increases his running
speed for a few seconds.  This is the key to activating the manual roll.
After tapping the right trigger, simply jump.  Your running speed before
jumping has an effect on how fast the roll will be, so remember that when
trying to complete each task.

All of this is great –
really, really great.  So why if the game is such a wonderful game does this
sound like a setup for a complaint?  Probably because it is.  Billy Hatcher
and the Giant Egg is one of the most inventive games I’ve played all year.
It’ll wow many players – especially the younger crowd.  But no matter how fun
it is, nothing can take away its two damaging factors: 1) it is a very
childish game, and 2) it isn’t very difficult.

I can overlook the kiddie
stuff.  I’ve put up with worse in the past, so the cutesy animals and the
annoying voice-overs didn’t faze me much.  The difficulty isn’t as easy to
forgive.  Billy Hatcher is nothing but fun before it ends.  However, most of
the game’s objectives are simple.  Hatch this, unlock that, jump through this,
roll down that.  This means that you could literally sit down and finish the
game in a day and still have time to go to a movie, hang out with friends, or,
if you dare, finish your homework (shudder!).  The same could be said for
Sonic Adventure, but NOT on your first time through!  However, this is a Sega
game, and like most titles from the Big S, Billy Hatcher has a decent amount
of replay value.

Reviewer’s Scoring Details

Gameplay: 7.9
Billy Hatcher has
no official relation to Super Monkey Ball, but if you own a GameCube, chances
are you’ve played, love and probably own one or both of the SMB titles.  That
being the case, you’ll definitely enjoy Billy Hatcher.

The
game is structured in a very unique way.  The levels usually consist of
platforms that are suspended in the air, or of larger areas that are
surrounded by water.  That’s not the unique part though.  The thing that sets
them apart from the crowd is how you traverse each area.  There are several
flat, angled and down-spiraling surfaces that give the game its Super Monkey
Ball style.

Graphics: 8.5
Billy Hatcher is
cutesy but pretty.  Childish but has gorgeous water.  There are a few bad
graphical moments where objects just seem to fade into view, but other than
that, this is a spectacular-looking game.

Sound: 5.9
Billy Hatcher’s
music is almost good.  It could have been great if the kiddie sounds were
toned down, especially the constant cock-a-doodle-dooing every time Billy
hatches an egg.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Younger,
inexperienced gamers will be more challenged than the adult crowd, but that
doesn’t mean they won’t beat it quickly.  Age doesn’t matter – if you’ve
beaten Sonic Adventure or Super Monkey Ball, you can beat Billy Hatcher.

Concept: 9
Don’t judge it
till you play it.  The screenshots reveal little about the gameplay, and my
words are merely an indication, but not a representation of what the game is
all about.  Yuji Naka continues to show the gaming world why he is so loved by
Sega.  His innovative ideas never fail to amaze us.  For the craftsmanship
alone, anyone who considers him or herself to be a hardcore gamer must play
this game.

Multiplayer: 7
Billy Hatcher’s
multiplayer mini-games are pretty basic, but still hold a certain amount of
fun.  Kids will surely dig ’em.

Overall: 7.8
No one except
Sega could make a game about giant eggs and a little boy this much fun.  It
looks childish, but if you knew how much effort Yuji Naka put into the
gameplay you likely wouldn’t care.  Super Monkey Ball lovers are gonna eat
this game up before it scrambles, and they won’t need pancakes or a few strips
of bacon to go with it either.

Billy Hatcher’s only
significant flaw is its lack of a lengthy quest.  If the game were more
challenging it would probably seem a lot longer.  Still, you’re gonna have a
blast with this one.  I recommend that all GameCube owners – young or old –
rent it as soon as they can.  Kids who love Monkey Ball should get it, and if
you don’t mind completing new games in a day or two, then you should get it,
too.