And on top of that, once you collect all 947 puny items that ain't very easy to see or collect, you unlock a bunch of "bonus levels" with no real reward at the end.
btw, the "coin" that falls from the tree in the first boss battle is probably not a coin but an iron washtub; one falling onto a character's head out of nowhere is a fairly common gag in Japanese media
@@gameboy3d943 Animal Crossing: City Folk uses something like this. When Katrina has your fortune read, a washtub falls on your head so that Katrina can see your dizzy-stars to talk about a character. Someone like Blathers or Tom Nook.
what the hell is that even supposed to be an electron? a proton? an atom? does it say anywhere if you could only get one pixel why not make it A BIGGER PIXEL
This is made worse by the fact that this game would have been designed to have been played on a CRT. If it's this hard to see on a pixel-perfect LCD screen, then analogue CRTS built with no clearly defined x:y ratio would be nightmarish.
The fact that every boss looks just a bit too dark and horrific than the artstyle of Phix and his world would imply made me fully convinced the Samurai was gonna commit seppuku infront of me.
The only one is the first boss that looks like the only thing fitting for this game. The others look like something out of a rejected rpg fighting game.
Clearly the developers didn't even consider that. Either they were idiots when thinking of that idea or they were just downright doing it to make players go completely insane.
@@ExtremeWreck It was released in 2000, they were testing and developing this game on CRTs. They were probably downright doing it to make players go completely insane.
@@devonwilliams5738 Yeah, definitely. Like, the CRTs would probably have that very tiny collectable completely blend into the frames of animation & background.
Considering they're just floating about in random places, and aren't behind any difficult to reach places, I wouldn't be surprised if they were meant to be invisible, and the fact that we can see them on HD screens is unintentional.
The worst part is. The japanese realease came out in 2000, while the amerocan realease came out in 2003. They had 3 whole years to "phix" this game, but did nothing. I'm also astonished that the devs allowed a small white pixel to count as a collectable. These devs are evil. EVIL I TELL YOU.
@@swilleh_You're in luck, sorta. Affect transitioned to developing web applications in 2008. Most of the games in its Wikipedia page are red links, including Phix: The Adventure.
The devs probably programmed them in, then forgot about them because they were almost invisible. I'm guessing they aren't textured, or they just happen to use a texture with a single pixel that's not transparent.
3:08 Aluminum is a non-ferrous material and wouldn't be magnetic. Those soda cans near the beginning of the cutscene shouldn't have been attracted to Phix, even with the "Magnia Stone".
Interestingly, moving magnetic fields do induce small currents in aluminum. These currents are called Eddy currents and they create an opposing magnetic field. Have you ever dropped a magnet through an aluminum pipe with a diameter just barely big enough for it to move freely? Aluminum is still not attracted to magnets though.
Makes you wonder just what else has been forgotten by the sands of time. If something like Phix can be lost and found again....what else could be of a similar fate
What Just Bad Games would I like to see Rerez cover in the future? Highlander (Jaguar CD), Congo (Sega Saturn), Blade Dancer (PSP), Activision's SpongeBob duology (Xbox 360), The Incredible Hulk (Sega Saturn), Robin Hood's Quest (PC), Infogrames' Tintin trilogy (PC)
You know what's even more insane about the literal pixel hunt collectables? This was made at a time CRT's were the norm, even with the fairly late release in '03. So not only did they expect you to find said pixels, but do it through a 480i at most CRT less then 20" wide. Even weirder is like almost every other collectable basically has a neon sign pointing to it and is otherwise visible.
Keep in mind that old graphics were designed specifically FOR CRT screens, they look much better when viewed on CRTs they do on LCD screens. As such, there's a strong possibility that these collectibles would have been MORE visible back in the day, on a CRT screen, though I'm not sure how that would work…maybe the lower overall pixel count would make the flashing of one pixel more noticeable? After all, pixels work differently on CRTs than LCDs, it's not the same as 480p on an LCD screen. Either way, all I know is that, when it comes to old graphics, graphics designed SPECIFICALLY to be viewed on CRTs, nothing in them is invisible on a CRT screen and visible on an LCD screen, that's just not how that works - it's not like video of live action events, visuals built from the ground up on CRTs for CRTs look much better on CRTs than LCDs. Granted, video game collectibles tend to be a lot more signposted than this either way, but I'm willing to bet it was SLIGHTLY less of a headache when viewed as intended.
I wonder if the original version was this broken, or if someone screwed up with localization. Obviously the plot could make more sense, because if I read between the lines a little, being used to execrable translations, I get this: The MAGNIA STONE is some kind of magical orb thing that balances the world’s magnetic energy. Everyone is happy when it’s out there doing its job. When something happens to destabilize it, it sets the world into turmoil. The 4 Kings, each controlling one cardinal direction (NSEW), get a little nuts when the magnetic field of the planet goes wonky. Meanwhile Phix has to go on this long journey, trying to set things right. They fight him because they’re literally being pushed to magnetic madness. That’s why they “snap out of it” when their energy is drained, and why some of them knew but couldn’t help but fight Phix. So he’s basically a worse version of Kirby, but without a Dark Matter analogue. And awful rendering. And bad controls.
And without copy abilities. And without cuteness. And with near-invisible collectibles. And without a secret ending or any other real reason to get the collectibles. And with a bad camera. And-
Yeah, I got the same feeling myself, but the game does an absolutely terrible job conveying this to the player. In Kirby 64, that entire concept was conveyed without a single line of dialogue for translators or localizers to potentially botch and so that young kids-y’know, the target demographic of these games-can easily understand what’s going on regardless of their reading comprehension skills. Conveying a game’s plot through dialogue isn’t necessarily a problem, but in this case, Kirby’s method of show-don’t-tell works out better, while Phix’s dialogue ends up making the plot more confusing than it would be otherwise.
The translation job was definitely rushed, I realized that those extra challenge levels were translated to "training stage" because both the verbs "to train" and "to challenge" can be more or less the synonym of "to try", so in japanese the title mustve had a vague term that implies all these definitions, and the translator had no time to do actual research. Also, for people who have enough knowledge of Japanese, the dialogues are noticeably very literal translation of natural japanese speech hence the overall weirdness.
God, you can feel the frustration the entire time just watching the gameplay. I can understand "we wanted to make a platforming game with magnets, but got too far before realizing it sucked" but like... why not just play like normal and have the shoulder buttons be "hold to charge negative" and "hold to charge positive" so the magnetic launching and attraction powers only affect you on command?
We think this game was so frustrating to play that the few who did play it at the time of it's release gave up early on. This is probably why this game is so unknown.
@@rerez Oh I don't doubt that players gave up on it, but one would think someone on the dev team would have tried out a build and gone "oh, wow, this is garbage! There has to be a better way to incorporate magnetism!" Then again, Drakd of the 99 Dragons had QA testers screaming its problems and the head of the project ignored them out of ego and sheer arrogance, so fair enough.
There's something special about that animation when Phix drowns and falls off a cliff, it's so damn hilarious to me, I can't stop cracking up when he plunges to his demise!
i think it's the fact that it's super crappily animated. they clearly just rotate phix's model along its basis point (which seems to be his *feet*) so he looks extra jank and comical. also, it's super abrupt.
So I think I have some ideas for better pickups: Magnia Stone Shards that broke off during the plummet & Balloons. And made new endings to go with them. Worst Ending: (barely any Shards or Balloons) They use Phix as a “Replacement Magnia Stone” and leave him to rot on that pedestal All Magnia Ending: (100% Shards but barely any Balloons) Basically the ending seen in the video where Phix has to find the softest landing zone. All Balloons: (barely any Shards but 100% Balloons) They launch Phix & intend for him to be the “Replacement Magnia Stone” but Phix uses the balloons to escape. Only now he has to avoid the Cleric’s minions for the rest of his days Best/True Ending: (All Shards & Balloons) The Stone is restored & put back on the pedestal but Phix has Balloons to get back down safely. He can spend the rest of his days not having to worry about all that magnetic nonsense
Ooh, that’s good- taking a leaf from Crash Bandicoot and Spyro’s book there. Maybe they could limit the polarity thing to only certain enemies as well, and make the bosses make a little more sense. That and “Phix” the controls. The game could have been great if they put proper thought into it.
This is one of those games I stumbled upon while "acquiring" random PS1 games I've never heard of. I played it for about five minutes and then just got sad imagining whatever kid got this for Christmas or whatever instead of some other cool 2003 PS1 game. Like, uh... the weird THPS4 port?
I feel like the "Analog Horror" industry could give this game new life. The game feels really ominous and empty and the basically undocumented nature of the game gives it a lot of potential to have a dark twist. I can already see Phix becoming obsessed with the player, as they're the first one to play basically since the game came out, and begging them to stay. That failing, he turns to violence and psychological manipulation.
Man, the developers really hated Phix, leaving him up on that island to either starve to death or to jump to his death… I mean, look at this poor creature… his existence is nothing but constant pain and suffering… I just feel horrible for him…
Your premise is off and that’s what’s causing you problems. You start with the presumption that the developer who put the pixel collectable in is sane in the first place.
I'm being serious for once. I would like to express my deep appreciation to your sheer willpower, forcing yourselves to beat ludicrously hard or terrible games just for our enjoyment. and managing to craft fun content in the process. thank you guys.
Seriously. We've all played some terrible and frustrating games, and we turn it off if it's a chore to play. These guys put in countless hours, trudging through, to get enough recorded and to be able to explain the game in all its stupidity. And that's before they get to edit it all together! The voice-overs and editing are probably a picnic compared to getting all the raw footage haha
The dedication is off the charts. I wouldn't expect anyone to power through in order to beat garbage like this or the Cid games but they do it anyway. That reward though, what a kick in the teeth. Even if the game was good it'd still not be worth it. I was expecting a better ending or something but nope.
It’s a shame this one turned out so bad, I think the 2D art of Phix is really cute and it had some great concepts, magnets are used great really well in It Takes Two and Super Magnetic Neo. I think it’s probably best that this game is left as a forgotten PS1 experiment.
That moment when they say "It's Just Bad" and that little tune plays. That joyous smile fades away and you realize you gotta wait weeks for the next one. 😟
I'm POSITIVE that this is going to be a good episode, with a rather REPULSIVE game that doesn't even ATTRACT any masochists, with its NEGATIVE aura throughout the entire game. Puns aside, great episode as always, Rerez! Thank you for going against the grain and find really obscure bad games not talked about much, if at all; it is refreshing seeing something that isn't YIIK or Fallout 76 for instance. Hope you two are taking it easy, especially with how terrible these games can get.
Jeez, those collectibles... That's the sort of pixel hunting crud I'd expect for a secret UFO ending, or the best joke weapon in the game. Not... standard freakin' game-play!
@@BinglesP Survival horror tends to have some really goofy joke endings & weapons to lighten the mood. UFO endings used to be a hidden running gag in Silent Hill, and Dead Space 2+3 had foam-fingers that instant kills anything pointed at if you beat the highest difficulty. For just two examples. And~ that stuff was completely optional insanity slash fun for the completionists out there, I should add. NOT a must to see the dang ending.
@@LORDOFDORKNESS42 hell, i’d say even that’s being generous. This is more like the stuff you collect for a dumb easter egg that the developers snuck in without the higher ups knowing about it. At least with the foam fingers, that’s a reward for beating the hardest mode available and there’s a chance you might actually uncover the dog ending on your own by just playing the game. THIS is unbelievable
The models for the boss fights look genuinely fantastic, but aside from the first boss, they totally clash with the aesthetic and tone of the game. It's so weird, do I like them or hate them??
Just realized the Lava Boss model actually looks exactly like Balan from Balan Wonderworld minus the big hat lol. Did the Balan creator reused some of the asset from this obscure game?
This game actually could of been a hidden gem and honestly I think all it would’ve taken was them making the magnet powers a button press instead of constantly fumbling with your controller and looking at your HUD but the collectibles and level geometry are still inexcusable 😂
There's this game that's a Portal clone called Magrunner. It's a first person puzzle game that instead of using portals, it uses magnets to push and pull platforms and boxes. It also has a horror twist to it, as in, *LITERALLY CTHULHU* is warping reality around you and you even need to avoid eldritch monstrosities. Pretty underrated game IMO.
I don't really consider Magrunner a Portal clone: it's another member of the "3-D Puzzle-Platformer" genre. Also, it's made by FrogWares, who I adore for the Sherlock Holmes games they produce
I played that. It was pretty cool. A little janky in places, but it wasn't bad. I do wish the more Eldridge parts of the game involved a bit more puzzle solving with the magnets rather than just running away.
That silver thing with the "hit-me" tree wasn't a coin: It's a metal washing basin re "Drop The Washtub" TVtrope, and was an extremely old Japanese cold-joke gag that existed forever. It's probably the Japan version of the "drop anvil on head" Bugs Bunny gag. Man, even mentioning it feels old.
The interesting thing is, a platformer game based on switching between magnetic polarities isn’t necessarily a bad concept, and could legitimately work. Phix just managed to do everything wrong.
That Dreamcast game that I can't fully remember the name of *_in spite of hearing its name only A COUPLE MINUTES AGO_* showed that the concept can be done at least a lot better.
If Rerez ever starts making JUST BAD GAMES episodes on mobile games, the responsibility of keeping the series on will be passed on from generation to generation.
Mobile game candidates hm? Might as well address the demonic elephant in the room. EA and Dungeon Keeper Mobile. FF All The Bravest is also quite the turd. Most bad mobile games are mediocre and not even worth mentioning but those two are really awful. Edit: Hogwarts Mysteries too. Ever wanted to pay to play a game that barely qualifies as one?
Did this game cost a lot? Usually the ones that come out near the end of a console's lifespan land up being worth more. Is that the case here? Just wondering if torturing yourself is an expensive hobby ;) Cheers.
The thing I admire about these two chads is that no matter how the game makes them want to uninstall life (similar how to they want to uninstall this game), is that they don’t give up
These guys just discovered a secret of a really bad game nobody cares about that probably remained hidden for 22 years, and suffered collecting the worst collectibles in a video game ever just to discover the secret. If that isn't epic and/or dedication, then I don't know what it is. Thanks for the video Rerez
Phix looks so familiar, and yet I have literally never heard of this game before. I dunno if it's because Phix looks like a rejected party member from Chrono Cross, a game filled with rejected party members, or maybe it was in some magazine as a punchline, or maybe it's having drowned in tons of samey looking mascot platformers with cute cartoony mammals. But whatever it is, it's crossing into a weird uncanny valley of memory.
I def remember seeing this thing in stores once. I briefly looked at it before settling on a Monster Rancher game instead. Much better choice turns out lol
2:48 Well to be fair Unprotected objects entering the earth's atmosphere from space tend to get reduced in size due to burning up in from entering atmosphere so fast
The way y'all bleep the curse words really cracks me up. This is one of those cases for me where deliberate censoring is funnier to me than an uncensored thing. 😂
Wow. I thought they were being hyperbolic at the start since it sounded like a good idea in concept, but that was genuinely terrible. I know the PS1 could have some engine-inherent teething problems with true 3D like this, but that ground collision and layering was next-level bad.
Even still, it's not like they were making Super Mario 64, breaking new ground that has some teething issues. It came out in 2000 and isn't even doing a bare minimum. Like if you took out ALL the magnet stuff, it still wouldn't be even mediocre.
They could have _easily_ explained the boss' hostility by saying "The disappearance of the Magnia Stone drove drove the people of the land insane." I guess kinda like Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon...
@@SuperPeterok it’s definitely not the worst game out there, but this definitely isn’t good. It has a cool idea, but you need more than that for a good game
@@SuperPeterok I'm not sure how you can possibly say it's "not that bad" when looking at all the problems it has. Seriously, the platforming looks tedious and is made no better by how easy it is to fall to your death, the collectibles are almost impossible to see, and these are just the game's main problems, which are terrible to have for a game of it's genre. It may have an admittedly interesting concept, but it hardly matters given how botched it is
A big problem with this game is that Phix is clearly a 2 object pasted onto a 3D world, which is why it's so hard to tell where he's positioned of the world. Or maybe it's the reverse? Either way it makes for awful platforming.
I disagree. There's plenty of great 90s games that combine 2d sprites with 3d objects. Like MDK. This game is just bad. You know, like the name of the series
The issue lies in the PlayStation itself and the developers. PlayStation 1 didn't have any hardware based z-buffer (which is responsible for showing objects behind each other in the correct order). Any developer that made a 3D game had to develop a software based z-buffer which meant that there could be various glitches depending on how much time they spent on it and how many resources it could take from the rest of the game. It's also the reason why the walls warp in many games for the ps1.
Shantae Half Genie Hero does it so much better. Shantae and the others are 2d objects in a 3d world, but you obviously know when Shantae is about to slip off.
honestly this game's concept is so cool, i would love to see a proper modern platformer with a magnet polarity concept! chaining jumps over pits with magnets would feel so satisfying, like nailing wavedashes in celeste!
@@hudsonm1a22 the funniest part is the mention of that exact game at the end, and it's release date being the same year the Japanese version of Phix released.
For the clusterfuck it is, I have to respect that they actually went through the length to make something this insane. They could've made a Bubsy 3D/Gingerbread man and call it a day.
@@IkesDaddelbox it’s not the EXACT same, more just a heavy object that falls and bonks someone’s head rather than flatten them but it’s pretty much the same concept
This game looks like a spiritual successor to Bubsy 3D that's somehow even more annoying and worse-looking than that game was. What an achievement. I don't know how you guys managed to beat this completely, but I have a newfound respect for your bad-game playing skills.
Sad part is this concept sounds really cool. If they did things like make it so you set your trajectory when shooting out of a magnetic felid, target feild to attract to to zoom you to it, allow you to hit one enemy with another enemy, manipulate metals to get to new areas, or collect metal scraps around to use as projectiles and armor, later on he could learn to perfect his powers to do things such as pull off metal armors or levitate in the air, using the crystals instead of making them for extra lives could be used as a curency to upgrade abilities. it could work. As for story instead of a magna orb accidentally falling off an unguarded, unprotected floating island, have some thunder diety create the orb and send it into phix giving him tremendous magnetic abilities but because phix is new he has to learn to control it, the reason is some unknown force has caused the kings of the realm to become corrupted.
12:48 Surely a massive apple didn't lacerate phix's skull Not after the game LITERATELY told us to hit... the F*&@%$ Tree Died... xD literately died of laughter here
Can I just say how impressed I am that you always manage to finish these monstrosities? I mean, it's the smallest of rewards; but at least the compliment isn't killing you 317 times.
13:40 that wasn't a coin, it was a water basin. Based on the gag of someone opening a door only to get soaked with water from a bucket, in Japan, the gag often ends with there just being no water in the bucket
This makes me wonder if this was a game that got made early or at least halfway in the PS1's lifespan... but was either canned or stuck in dev hell before finally being released. How it's a joke of archaic design compared to many other PS1 3D platformers that came before it, how it has clipping issues that are pathetic even for a PS1, how the clipping/collision detection is so bad you constantly walk on top of terrain and fall THROUGH THE FLOOR, how badly lacking it is in camera control and mostly relies on static camera angles like early PS1 games, and how it has no DualShock support for controlling the camera despite the fact that even Spiro 1 from 1998 supported that and the back of the case claims it supports it... it reeks of a game that was cancelled or just stuck in dev hell and with the PS1 on it's way out they just pulled this off the shelf and rushed it out with all of it's old code that was likely written long before release. I wouldn't be surprised if the single-pixel collectables were just placeholders for whatever graphic they were meant to be that they never bothered or even forgot to finish.
An interesting theory but even then how did this make it out of said development hell? And not only get out of Development Hell, be obviously terrible but still get translated when the iron is ice cold. So you're not even shifting units due to there being no competition. And everyone already has a copy of Cash Banooka at the very least.
@@NEEDbacon Like I said, they might have just shipped what they already had, essentially a beta version. Maybe just patching up one or two small things that utterly crashed the game or so. A case of "Nobody will care about this PS1 game after the PS2 is out, if we don't ship it now as-is we will ship it never" and figured they could at least make some of the dev costs back. Don't forget the Japanese version came out in 2000, the same year as the PS2.
@@Cyber_Akuma Honestly, Twisted Metal Small Brawl comes to mind more then anything. If not even Twisted Metal was getting love for a weirdo sequel still on the PS1. Then you may very well have a point about them shoving this out the door just to recoup SOMETHING.
I could just watch this "just bad games" the whole day. They are so good. The tiny dots and the constant screaming were hilarious, I was really laughing out loud
To make the white pixel collectibles even worse, picture what this would've been like playing the game back when it first came out, when TVs were small and put out comparatively tiny resolutions, and we didn't have the luxury of blowing up the image through emulation or external hardware. Finding such minuscule items under those conditions would be hell, especially in stages where the pixel blends into the environment's bright colors. I wouldn't be surprised if that was why the camera was so zoomed in on the normal levels, and why no such collectibles exist on boss levels - to make it the slightest bit easier to find those pixels.
So I do want to point out that the tree dropped a basin of water, not a coin. It's apparently a very common comical object to drop on top of cartoon character's heads in Japan, similar to anvils in the US. Doesn't fix the game though.
This was one of the best episodes on teh channel. A game noone ever seems to have played, much less completed at any point in time, which you finished 100%. I can imagine a Dev's soul finally resting in peace after this episode. Also, It's a gaming preservation effort gem. It must have been extraordinarily hard, but KUDOS to youi guys for suffering through it!
21:27 Wow... the sounds Phix makes are just ... really irritating. Imagine bieng stuck listening to something like that on repeat? I still can't believe you guys sat through this entire game and rewatched all of your footage probably multiple times - you're crazy. lol
This does feel like a game where those optional collectables and extra levels are required for a good ending, is that a thing here or is the ending just that dumb all the time?
You know what I just realized that makes it even worse? The hint that mentions the "one condition" which obviously alludes to the pixel sized collectables? *It's in the part of the manual talking about the training mode, basically showing that the collectables are tied to that mode only.* They straight up show that the collectables and 100% the game was not gonna be worth it by having that one tiny part be in the section about the training mode, but still wanted players to talk about it by keeping that part in for the mystery!
There would need to be enough interest in remaking this game for that to happen, but it's so bad, it would likely need a complete overhaul to be phixed
So, there's no extra ending for getting those collectibles? I'm assuming they're fairies whose combined magical power could get you off the island. Otherwise, why have an ending where you're stuck on the island?
I have to wonder if anyone even achieved 100% completion on this game before Rerez did, given the literal pixel hunt collectibles and the game's extreme obscurity.
7:24 The Ghost Of Wasted Money must be swimming in that water. 9:01 I didn't know this game was programmed by the Glitch Gremlin! 11:01 I guess I spoke too soon about the Glitch Gremlin. 18:13 Collectibles the size of hydrogen atoms? Apparently, it ain't absurd enough that Bubsy 3D was butchered beyond belief by a bunch of Laughing Joking Numbnuts who probably tried to program the whole doggone thing in a week! 20:37 Seriously? 4:20 An action-adventure game for the whole family? Everybody's a comedian!
Hey! We got an official Discord server! Come visit: discord.gg/rerez
You guys forgot about Tomba! Ps1
Please review Blasto ps1
Owl: watch out a Poisonous snake! 18:46
Steven Universe: Snake! 18:40
Jones: snakes why did it have to be snakes? 18:44
Their genuine fear when the Final Boss looks like he's going to kill himself is priceless.
"For the whole family"
this one's for your emo sibling
I don't blame him, I'd do the same if I were in a game as awful as this
I showed my husband this and his reaction mirrored the guys'.
Deduction doesn't lead to your resseruction!
- A random physco
Portal
Imagine designing a game where you have to collect A SINGLE WHITE PIXEL. As a collectable, which is required to get 100%
You'd have to be borderline insane to think that's a remomtely good idea
And imagine that, but on a fucking CRT.
Imagine getting the 100% for a youtube review
And on top of that, once you collect all 947 puny items that ain't very easy to see or collect, you unlock a bunch of "bonus levels" with no real reward at the end.
Yeah! The devs didn’t “Phix” their game…
Phix's little death scream somehow gets funnier every time
Especially when it's slowed down and sounds like a normal dude
@@streeterville773 in fact, it's the same death sound that Trevor does in Metal Slug 4
I know right?? that was such a hilarious thing to include
REEEeeeeeeee
AAAAA-
It's quite the honor to be a witness to the first 2 people in history to 100% Complete "Phix: The Adventure"
btw, the "coin" that falls from the tree in the first boss battle is probably not a coin but an iron washtub; one falling onto a character's head out of nowhere is a fairly common gag in Japanese media
reminds me of the "anvil on the head" gag in old american cartoons...
@@ericb3157 Funny thing is, it was mainly shows like Tiny Toon Adventures & Animaniacs that used the anvil on head gag.
Something like that happened in paper mario color splash.
@@Mariofan-lz5gf Now that you mention it, I think it happened in Splatoon 2, too.
@@gameboy3d943 Animal Crossing: City Folk uses something like this. When Katrina has your fortune read, a washtub falls on your head so that Katrina can see your dizzy-stars to talk about a character. Someone like Blathers or Tom Nook.
"Coll-ec-ti-bles!" Had me laughing off my seat. One pixel was all they probably could afford.
what the hell is that even supposed to be
an electron? a proton? an atom? does it say anywhere
if you could only get one pixel why not make it A BIGGER PIXEL
25:26 Ergs
Me too!!🤣🤣🤣👍
16:45 XDDD
"Hooray! I never want to see this piece-of-crap level EVER AGAIN!" - Shane
The second you collected that first tiny pixel, the realization came so fast and I nearly had an aneurysm...
why?
@@muhammadfirdausbinsyahrom seriously you ask 😂
Same. I had to facepalm and ask why.
This is made worse by the fact that this game would have been designed to have been played on a CRT. If it's this hard to see on a pixel-perfect LCD screen, then analogue CRTS built with no clearly defined x:y ratio would be nightmarish.
@@TheBlackSeraph exactly, the game looked like a pixelated mess in the first place so good luck to any purists out there who use CRTs...
The fact that every boss looks just a bit too dark and horrific than the artstyle of Phix and his world would imply made me fully convinced the Samurai was gonna commit seppuku infront of me.
The only one is the first boss that looks like the only thing fitting for this game.
The others look like something out of a rejected rpg fighting game.
@@nathanblevins9870 The evil scientist enemy in the Techno City Lauterbur stage could fit as the boss
(Tries not to look at offbrand Medusa)
the fact he says "i apologise for my bad manner" before looking like hes about to sudoku himself is amazing
@@c0zmozys That’s “seppuku”.
For the gamers that played on CRTs, they'd have an even harder time spotting them. The collectables would practically be invisible.
Clearly the developers didn't even consider that. Either they were idiots when thinking of that idea or they were just downright doing it to make players go completely insane.
@@ExtremeWreck It was released in 2000, they were testing and developing this game on CRTs. They were probably downright doing it to make players go completely insane.
@@devonwilliams5738 Yeah, definitely. Like, the CRTs would probably have that very tiny collectable completely blend into the frames of animation & background.
Considering they're just floating about in random places, and aren't behind any difficult to reach places, I wouldn't be surprised if they were meant to be invisible, and the fact that we can see them on HD screens is unintentional.
@@Golemoid Just like the strings in old puppet shows?
The worst part is. The japanese realease came out in 2000, while the amerocan realease came out in 2003. They had 3 whole years to "phix" this game, but did nothing. I'm also astonished that the devs allowed a small white pixel to count as a collectable. These devs are evil. EVIL I TELL YOU.
I really hope that they no longer make games.
@@swilleh_You're in luck, sorta. Affect transitioned to developing web applications in 2008. Most of the games in its Wikipedia page are red links, including Phix: The Adventure.
The devs probably programmed them in, then forgot about them because they were almost invisible. I'm guessing they aren't textured, or they just happen to use a texture with a single pixel that's not transparent.
Any other games they made are low quality garbage
Amerocan.
3:08 Aluminum is a non-ferrous material and wouldn't be magnetic. Those soda cans near the beginning of the cutscene shouldn't have been attracted to Phix, even with the "Magnia Stone".
You win 'Correct Science Comment Of The Day!'
M-maybe in Phix's world, soda cans ARE magnetic!
Afterall, nothing else about this game makes any sense.
Interestingly, moving magnetic fields do induce small currents in aluminum. These currents are called Eddy currents and they create an opposing magnetic field. Have you ever dropped a magnet through an aluminum pipe with a diameter just barely big enough for it to move freely? Aluminum is still not attracted to magnets though.
But it worked in Drake and Josh
You beat me to it.
I love how they continue to find some of the most obscure, bizarre games and show so much of it
Makes you wonder just what else has been forgotten by the sands of time. If something like Phix can be lost and found again....what else could be of a similar fate
@@cyberprime9355 yeah, even I wanna know too. Such obscure and bad games like Phix in this video for example are one that I wanna see even more.
Some things are forgotten for a reason.
not only that, but 100% completion too.
What Just Bad Games would I like to see Rerez cover in the future? Highlander (Jaguar CD), Congo (Sega Saturn), Blade Dancer (PSP), Activision's SpongeBob duology (Xbox 360), The Incredible Hulk (Sega Saturn), Robin Hood's Quest (PC), Infogrames' Tintin trilogy (PC)
"Phix The Adventure."
Yes. Yes, please do.
Truly, no other words summarize this game better.
Fix the Phix The adventure
Phix The Broken!
You know what's even more insane about the literal pixel hunt collectables? This was made at a time CRT's were the norm, even with the fairly late release in '03. So not only did they expect you to find said pixels, but do it through a 480i at most CRT less then 20" wide. Even weirder is like almost every other collectable basically has a neon sign pointing to it and is otherwise visible.
Keep in mind that old graphics were designed specifically FOR CRT screens, they look much better when viewed on CRTs they do on LCD screens. As such, there's a strong possibility that these collectibles would have been MORE visible back in the day, on a CRT screen, though I'm not sure how that would work…maybe the lower overall pixel count would make the flashing of one pixel more noticeable? After all, pixels work differently on CRTs than LCDs, it's not the same as 480p on an LCD screen. Either way, all I know is that, when it comes to old graphics, graphics designed SPECIFICALLY to be viewed on CRTs, nothing in them is invisible on a CRT screen and visible on an LCD screen, that's just not how that works - it's not like video of live action events, visuals built from the ground up on CRTs for CRTs look much better on CRTs than LCDs. Granted, video game collectibles tend to be a lot more signposted than this either way, but I'm willing to bet it was SLIGHTLY less of a headache when viewed as intended.
@@Wandergirl108 Actually considering how CRTs tend to blend things together, they were probably WAY more of a headache.
I effing LOST it with the collectible reveal! Oh my lord! That is a special kind of terrible that was actually someone’s idea!
I wonder if the original version was this broken, or if someone screwed up with localization. Obviously the plot could make more sense, because if I read between the lines a little, being used to execrable translations, I get this:
The MAGNIA STONE is some kind of magical orb thing that balances the world’s magnetic energy. Everyone is happy when it’s out there doing its job. When something happens to destabilize it, it sets the world into turmoil. The 4 Kings, each controlling one cardinal direction (NSEW), get a little nuts when the magnetic field of the planet goes wonky. Meanwhile Phix has to go on this long journey, trying to set things right. They fight him because they’re literally being pushed to magnetic madness. That’s why they “snap out of it” when their energy is drained, and why some of them knew but couldn’t help but fight Phix.
So he’s basically a worse version of Kirby, but without a Dark Matter analogue.
And awful rendering.
And bad controls.
Don't forget those horrible glitches!!!
And without copy abilities.
And without cuteness.
And with near-invisible collectibles.
And without a secret ending or any other real reason to get the collectibles.
And with a bad camera.
And-
Yeah, I got the same feeling myself, but the game does an absolutely terrible job conveying this to the player.
In Kirby 64, that entire concept was conveyed without a single line of dialogue for translators or localizers to potentially botch and so that young kids-y’know, the target demographic of these games-can easily understand what’s going on regardless of their reading comprehension skills.
Conveying a game’s plot through dialogue isn’t necessarily a problem, but in this case, Kirby’s method of show-don’t-tell works out better, while Phix’s dialogue ends up making the plot more confusing than it would be otherwise.
@@bhull242 without a monstuh ta clobbuh dat kirbeh
The translation job was definitely rushed, I realized that those extra challenge levels were translated to "training stage" because both the verbs "to train" and "to challenge" can be more or less the synonym of "to try", so in japanese the title mustve had a vague term that implies all these definitions, and the translator had no time to do actual research.
Also, for people who have enough knowledge of Japanese, the dialogues are noticeably very literal translation of natural japanese speech hence the overall weirdness.
God, you can feel the frustration the entire time just watching the gameplay.
I can understand "we wanted to make a platforming game with magnets, but got too far before realizing it sucked" but like... why not just play like normal and have the shoulder buttons be "hold to charge negative" and "hold to charge positive" so the magnetic launching and attraction powers only affect you on command?
We think this game was so frustrating to play that the few who did play it at the time of it's release gave up early on. This is probably why this game is so unknown.
@@rerez Oh I don't doubt that players gave up on it, but one would think someone on the dev team would have tried out a build and gone "oh, wow, this is garbage! There has to be a better way to incorporate magnetism!"
Then again, Drakd of the 99 Dragons had QA testers screaming its problems and the head of the project ignored them out of ego and sheer arrogance, so fair enough.
@@Darklordjadow1 This game feels like the game was tested by the devs themselves and they thought, “This is totally fine, ship it!”
Heck, the *other* platformer with magnets, Super Magnetic Neo, did exactly that.
oh nice dljadow good content
There's something special about that animation when Phix drowns and falls off a cliff, it's so damn hilarious to me, I can't stop cracking up when he plunges to his demise!
Right, it looks like those old timey, slap stick comedy cartoons type of death
i think it's the fact that it's super crappily animated. they clearly just rotate phix's model along its basis point (which seems to be his *feet*) so he looks extra jank and comical. also, it's super abrupt.
Agree, combined with the scream makes it hilarious lol
@@SmeddyTooBestChannel And if you look carefully, he's smiling during the drowning and falling animations.
yeah it's like the kirby falling of a cliff meme
So I think I have some ideas for better pickups: Magnia Stone Shards that broke off during the plummet & Balloons. And made new endings to go with them.
Worst Ending: (barely any Shards or Balloons) They use Phix as a “Replacement Magnia Stone” and leave him to rot on that pedestal
All Magnia Ending: (100% Shards but barely any Balloons) Basically the ending seen in the video where Phix has to find the softest landing zone.
All Balloons: (barely any Shards but 100% Balloons) They launch Phix & intend for him to be the “Replacement Magnia Stone” but Phix uses the balloons to escape. Only now he has to avoid the Cleric’s minions for the rest of his days
Best/True Ending: (All Shards & Balloons) The Stone is restored & put back on the pedestal but Phix has Balloons to get back down safely. He can spend the rest of his days not having to worry about all that magnetic nonsense
Ooh, that’s good- taking a leaf from Crash Bandicoot and Spyro’s book there. Maybe they could limit the polarity thing to only certain enemies as well, and make the bosses make a little more sense. That and “Phix” the controls. The game could have been great if they put proper thought into it.
That sounds really cool honestly. shame they never went with that...
Thanks! 😄
@@teddy-beargamer6385 Crash huh? Didn’t think of it that way admittedly 😆😅
@@dylanfrancis5996Can we have a secret joke ending in the game like Silent Hill?
This is one of those games I stumbled upon while "acquiring" random PS1 games I've never heard of. I played it for about five minutes and then just got sad imagining whatever kid got this for Christmas or whatever instead of some other cool 2003 PS1 game. Like, uh... the weird THPS4 port?
THPS4?
@@GiordanDiodato Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, probably.
@@MegamanXfan21xx ahhh
@@MegamanXfan21xx Yeah that had a PS1 version for whatever reason.
I feel really bad you played it because my God this game was so bad it makes sonic 06 look like a masterpiece of a game and that game sucks as well
Id love to see a skilled indie team try these concepts successfully
I agree. The concept actually sounds cool but it was wasted on this garbage
It's been ages since I played it but I think the old xbox game Metal Arms had some polarity puzzles. That was a great game.
That game would be Teslagrad! its all about magnetism, platforming and a hella great art style.
@@BR-jw7pm Well they did mention Electromagnetic Neo on Dreamcast
I'll have to check them out. Also I saw the part about the dreamcast game after making this comment so ill definitely have to check it out too.
My favorite thing is Phix's reaction at the end. "Just get this effing thing out of me."
What a nightmare.
"*deep breath* Canyoutakeitout?" freaking KILLED me. 😂 You guys deserve extra kudos for beating this one!
Certainly the other extreme compared to "I'm an Eaaagle!"
@@TheAzureNightmare 😂😂😂
30:26
So fucking funny 😂
I feel like the "Analog Horror" industry could give this game new life. The game feels really ominous and empty and the basically undocumented nature of the game gives it a lot of potential to have a dark twist.
I can already see Phix becoming obsessed with the player, as they're the first one to play basically since the game came out, and begging them to stay. That failing, he turns to violence and psychological manipulation.
That is a great idea!
the game already looks like one of those arg video things like petscop
@@moomooold Phix even looks kinda like the Guardian, with his huge head and big feet
@@moomooold Phixscop!
Just Phix.
Man, the developers really hated Phix, leaving him up on that island to either starve to death or to jump to his death… I mean, look at this poor creature… his existence is nothing but constant pain and suffering… I just feel horrible for him…
And if he wants help, he'll probably have to knock the magnia stone off the pedestal and absorb it all over again!
The developers saw Phix’s design and were so mad that they made an entire game to make him suffer
Gotta applaud the commitment to actually beat this game. I can't believe any sane developer would think one bouncing pixel is a good collectible.
Your premise is off and that’s what’s causing you problems. You start with the presumption that the developer who put the pixel collectable in is sane in the first place.
I present the first ever Easter egg as a rebuttal for sanitu
I'm being serious for once. I would like to express my deep appreciation to your sheer willpower, forcing yourselves to beat ludicrously hard or terrible games just for our enjoyment. and managing to craft fun content in the process.
thank you guys.
Seriously. We've all played some terrible and frustrating games, and we turn it off if it's a chore to play.
These guys put in countless hours, trudging through, to get enough recorded and to be able to explain the game in all its stupidity. And that's before they get to edit it all together!
The voice-overs and editing are probably a picnic compared to getting all the raw footage haha
The dedication is off the charts. I wouldn't expect anyone to power through in order to beat garbage like this or the Cid games but they do it anyway. That reward though, what a kick in the teeth. Even if the game was good it'd still not be worth it. I was expecting a better ending or something but nope.
11:04 That scream was way too real pitched-down that it caught me off guard.
21:51 The sheer sarcasm when he just exclaims “DOESN’T THIS LOOK FUN?!” is what’s fucking SENDING me right now
It’s a shame this one turned out so bad, I think the 2D art of Phix is really cute and it had some great concepts, magnets are used great really well in It Takes Two and Super Magnetic Neo. I think it’s probably best that this game is left as a forgotten PS1 experiment.
The fact that Phix kinda resembles Bubsy makes this so much funnier
Bubsy is a frickin masterpiece compared to Phix
@@PhazonEnder Yep. Now that sayin something
@@PhazonEnder It's hurts me how true this comment is.
@@PhazonEnder It makes Bubsy 3D look like Super Mario 64.
Bubsy is remembered for weird but fair reasons.
The existence of Phix is barely there,and thankfully,it should be.
The game needed to be Phixed before launch.
*booing intensifies*
Your joke is way better than mine.
Get out
I KNEW this pun would be in the comments somewhere!
Ba dum tss
That moment when they say "It's Just Bad" and that little tune plays. That joyous smile fades away and you realize you gotta wait weeks for the next one. 😟
How dare you..... How dare you remind me of that pain when I'm just 10 minutes into the video😭
Exactlyyy
Hahaha I was just thinking the same thing!🤣
This
Quality takes time. Look at all the cuts, animations, rewinds, superimposing, matching the video feed with their voices they do
I'm POSITIVE that this is going to be a good episode, with a rather REPULSIVE game that doesn't even ATTRACT any masochists, with its NEGATIVE aura throughout the entire game.
Puns aside, great episode as always, Rerez! Thank you for going against the grain and find really obscure bad games not talked about much, if at all; it is refreshing seeing something that isn't YIIK or Fallout 76 for instance. Hope you two are taking it easy, especially with how terrible these games can get.
Hot take 76: while bad, was fun
I'm having as FARADAY as I can with this level of magnet puns.
Jeez, those collectibles... That's the sort of pixel hunting crud I'd expect for a secret UFO ending, or the best joke weapon in the game. Not... standard freakin' game-play!
What kind of games do you play that would even do that
@@BinglesP Survival horror tends to have some really goofy joke endings & weapons to lighten the mood.
UFO endings used to be a hidden running gag in Silent Hill, and Dead Space 2+3 had foam-fingers that instant kills anything pointed at if you beat the highest difficulty. For just two examples.
And~ that stuff was completely optional insanity slash fun for the completionists out there, I should add. NOT a must to see the dang ending.
@@LORDOFDORKNESS42 hell, i’d say even that’s being generous. This is more like the stuff you collect for a dumb easter egg that the developers snuck in without the higher ups knowing about it. At least with the foam fingers, that’s a reward for beating the hardest mode available and there’s a chance you might actually uncover the dog ending on your own by just playing the game. THIS is unbelievable
The models for the boss fights look genuinely fantastic, but aside from the first boss, they totally clash with the aesthetic and tone of the game. It's so weird, do I like them or hate them??
Yeah, it's like they were made for a completely different game!
Just realized the Lava Boss model actually looks exactly like Balan from Balan Wonderworld minus the big hat lol. Did the Balan creator reused some of the asset from this obscure game?
@@Abel_Unstable I don't really see it. He looks more like a rejected Tekken character, to me.
This game actually could of been a hidden gem and honestly I think all it would’ve taken was them making the magnet powers a button press instead of constantly fumbling with your controller and looking at your HUD but the collectibles and level geometry are still inexcusable 😂
gorgonia in general just speaks final fantasy.
“We can probably skip the training mode and jump right in.” Every gamer ever on tutorials.
That would still be a bad idea, even if you’re a seasoned gamer.😒
Nope. I still do tutorials. Lol
Not me. Even if I'm experienced with other games, I'm not experienced with this one. There's a line between confidence and hubris.
“If you do a thing, it will...” jee thanks manual, what would we do without you?
We must not listen to the gamer voice in our head that says "you don't need to read any instructions"
There's this game that's a Portal clone called Magrunner. It's a first person puzzle game that instead of using portals, it uses magnets to push and pull platforms and boxes. It also has a horror twist to it, as in, *LITERALLY CTHULHU* is warping reality around you and you even need to avoid eldritch monstrosities. Pretty underrated game IMO.
reminds me of a game i played called "Relicta".
it was fun for a while, but then it got too complicated.
I don't really consider Magrunner a Portal clone: it's another member of the "3-D Puzzle-Platformer" genre. Also, it's made by FrogWares, who I adore for the Sherlock Holmes games they produce
Sounds cool! I might have to check that out!
I played that. It was pretty cool. A little janky in places, but it wasn't bad. I do wish the more Eldridge parts of the game involved a bit more puzzle solving with the magnets rather than just running away.
@@thomascollins5622 frogware consider it a portal clone. That's literally how they described it.
That silver thing with the "hit-me" tree wasn't a coin: It's a metal washing basin re "Drop The Washtub" TVtrope, and was an extremely old Japanese cold-joke gag that existed forever. It's probably the Japan version of the "drop anvil on head" Bugs Bunny gag. Man, even mentioning it feels old.
Glad to find another person that knows a little about Japanese gags. I learned about them via Snowboard Kids.
@namelessdork2256 It showed up in God Hand, too!
The interesting thing is, a platformer game based on switching between magnetic polarities isn’t necessarily a bad concept, and could legitimately work.
Phix just managed to do everything wrong.
Yha when they sed that I was like I know what the show is but that could be really cool
That Dreamcast game that I can't fully remember the name of *_in spite of hearing its name only A COUPLE MINUTES AGO_* showed that the concept can be done at least a lot better.
@@Chaos89P Super magnetic Neo. It's big downside is the main character is way uglier and blander than Phix, who's at least ugly-cute.
That wasn’t a coin, it was a washtub like in anime you see characters get hit in the head with a washtub.
Shhhhh! It is a coin. It has to be for the cheesy joke to work. XD
@@MunkyDrag0n Looks more like a Doggy Bowl.
Bruh i thought it was either a refrigerator or a huge gear piece
I meant to add this distinction in my own comment as well :)
Or in Animal Crossing: City Folk.
If Rerez ever starts making JUST BAD GAMES episodes on mobile games, the responsibility of keeping the series on will be passed on from generation to generation.
I really want them to do it. But only for the worst of the worst. There's too many in the list.
Mobile game candidates hm? Might as well address the demonic elephant in the room. EA and Dungeon Keeper Mobile.
FF All The Bravest is also quite the turd.
Most bad mobile games are mediocre and not even worth mentioning but those two are really awful.
Edit: Hogwarts Mysteries too. Ever wanted to pay to play a game that barely qualifies as one?
@@Superluigi881 Is that the one where you have to pay to un-strangle your character and other such ridiculous events?
Too much Sturgeon’s Law there
They did! The CID The Dummy sequel!
You play and own so many games most people never heard of now that’s dedication
We regularly go to video game stores and ask "What is the worst thing you have that nobody will ever buy?" and walk out with their garbage.
@@rerez but still dedication nun the less and it is funny to watch
@@kalebstigall2989 so tru
Greeny pooterlips
Did this game cost a lot?
Usually the ones that come out near the end of a console's lifespan land up being worth more.
Is that the case here?
Just wondering if torturing yourself is an expensive hobby ;)
Cheers.
The thing I admire about these two chads is that no matter how the game makes them want to uninstall life (similar how to they want to uninstall this game), is that they don’t give up
That "Single-pixel collectable" might be the biggest mindfuck in gaming history. I need... to lie down
Phix looks like the forbiden love child of Bubsy and Kirby
Kirbsy???
Well, that’s disgusting.
There could be no love in such a union.
Plays like it too.
Every time Phix fell into the void, I laughed.
Or even the water
Greeny pooterlips
*Trevor Spacey Screams intensify*
@@OmarAlikaj Heck, or even in lava.
Seeing a new “Just Bad Games” video is like opening a Christmas present!
Or birthday gift in my case.
Only difference is these gifts were given by either Krampus or your psychotic father-in-law.
This game makes Bubsy seem halfway decent in comparison. It's like if you unearthed a caveman and had them design a video game.
These guys just discovered a secret of a really bad game nobody cares about that probably remained hidden for 22 years, and suffered collecting the worst collectibles in a video game ever just to discover the secret. If that isn't epic and/or dedication, then I don't know what it is. Thanks for the video Rerez
Phix looks so familiar, and yet I have literally never heard of this game before. I dunno if it's because Phix looks like a rejected party member from Chrono Cross, a game filled with rejected party members, or maybe it was in some magazine as a punchline, or maybe it's having drowned in tons of samey looking mascot platformers with cute cartoony mammals. But whatever it is, it's crossing into a weird uncanny valley of memory.
You may be thinking of Chu Chu from Xenogears.
I def remember seeing this thing in stores once. I briefly looked at it before settling on a Monster Rancher game instead. Much better choice turns out lol
The Insane clown posse "miracles" clip during the magnet comment killed me. Freaking love you guys.
2:48
Well to be fair
Unprotected objects entering the earth's atmosphere from space tend to get reduced in size due to burning up in from entering atmosphere so fast
Imagine the fay speedrunners see this long forgotten game.... A true test of skill and endurance!
And sanity
The way y'all bleep the curse words really cracks me up. This is one of those cases for me where deliberate censoring is funnier to me than an uncensored thing. 😂
Wow. I thought they were being hyperbolic at the start since it sounded like a good idea in concept, but that was genuinely terrible. I know the PS1 could have some engine-inherent teething problems with true 3D like this, but that ground collision and layering was next-level bad.
Even still, it's not like they were making Super Mario 64, breaking new ground that has some teething issues. It came out in 2000 and isn't even doing a bare minimum. Like if you took out ALL the magnet stuff, it still wouldn't be even mediocre.
Is it wrong that I think Phix is kinda cute? He's got that vacant eyed idiot who blunders through the adventure type deal.
It depends on whether or not it's the 3d render.
definitely one to give to furry artists who deal with obscures
They could have _easily_ explained the boss' hostility by saying
"The disappearance of the Magnia Stone drove drove the people of the land insane."
I guess kinda like Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon...
Whenever I hear Adam say "phix the adventure" I feel like he's secretly sending a message to the developers.
Phix having the voice of some grizzled and apathetic noir detective works too well.
These games make you appreciate a lot of good games
This doesn't seem that bad
@@SuperPeterok it’s definitely not the worst game out there, but this definitely isn’t good. It has a cool idea, but you need more than that for a good game
@@supercamborg4218 for a very late ps2 game it's pretty impressive.
@@SuperPeterok PS1 game, and it’s really not that impressive considering what came years before it on the same system.
@@SuperPeterok I'm not sure how you can possibly say it's "not that bad" when looking at all the problems it has. Seriously, the platforming looks tedious and is made no better by how easy it is to fall to your death, the collectibles are almost impossible to see, and these are just the game's main problems, which are terrible to have for a game of it's genre. It may have an admittedly interesting concept, but it hardly matters given how botched it is
A big problem with this game is that Phix is clearly a 2 object pasted onto a 3D world, which is why it's so hard to tell where he's positioned of the world.
Or maybe it's the reverse? Either way it makes for awful platforming.
Idk everything seems 3D to me.
Maybe the camera and rendering is just weird
I disagree. There's plenty of great 90s games that combine 2d sprites with 3d objects. Like MDK. This game is just bad. You know, like the name of the series
The issue lies in the PlayStation itself and the developers. PlayStation 1 didn't have any hardware based z-buffer (which is responsible for showing objects behind each other in the correct order). Any developer that made a 3D game had to develop a software based z-buffer which meant that there could be various glitches depending on how much time they spent on it and how many resources it could take from the rest of the game. It's also the reason why the walls warp in many games for the ps1.
@@mar_speedman and Mario Kart 64.
Shantae Half Genie Hero does it so much better. Shantae and the others are 2d objects in a 3d world, but you obviously know when Shantae is about to slip off.
honestly this game's concept is so cool, i would love to see a proper modern platformer with a magnet polarity concept! chaining jumps over pits with magnets would feel so satisfying, like nailing wavedashes in celeste!
I agree. It’s a shame this cool concept is wasted on this garbage
Ever heard of Super Magnetic Neo for the Dreamcast? It has a childish story setup but the levels posed a challenge.
@@hudsonm1a22 the funniest part is the mention of that exact game at the end, and it's release date being the same year the Japanese version of Phix released.
@@Kalvinjj I just finished the video and oh boy, they mentioned it at the end. xD
Yes, Super Magnetic Neo is frustrating, but not on the Phix level...
@@hudsonm1a22 the main characther also looks like a smurf.
If you pause right at 12:12 you’ll see that Phix is totally fine with dying, look at that joyful expression.
Phix welcomes death
For the clusterfuck it is, I have to respect that they actually went through the length to make something this insane. They could've made a Bubsy 3D/Gingerbread man and call it a day.
I believe Phix is suffering as much as you had to, probably even more.
I actually believe Phix had died and Magnetica World is his personal hell.
13:35 that’s actually a wash basin. It’s the japanese equivalent to the cartoon anvil
A basin in a tree.
A BASIN......................in a TREE!
@@IkesDaddelbox i never said it made sense…
@@BR-jw7pm Welp, the anvil doesn't make sense either, if you think about it. But we just accepted it. I never knew there's an Asian equivalent.
@@IkesDaddelbox it’s not the EXACT same, more just a heavy object that falls and bonks someone’s head rather than flatten them but it’s pretty much the same concept
I love that you saved me from googling the collectible reward. I'm also sad that you had to go through it
This game looks like a spiritual successor to Bubsy 3D that's somehow even more annoying and worse-looking than that game was. What an achievement.
I don't know how you guys managed to beat this completely, but I have a newfound respect for your bad-game playing skills.
Sad part is this concept sounds really cool. If they did things like make it so you set your trajectory when shooting out of a magnetic felid, target feild to attract to to zoom you to it, allow you to hit one enemy with another enemy, manipulate metals to get to new areas, or collect metal scraps around to use as projectiles and armor, later on he could learn to perfect his powers to do things such as pull off metal armors or levitate in the air, using the crystals instead of making them for extra lives could be used as a curency to upgrade abilities. it could work.
As for story instead of a magna orb accidentally falling off an unguarded, unprotected floating island, have some thunder diety create the orb and send it into phix giving him tremendous magnetic abilities but because phix is new he has to learn to control it, the reason is some unknown force has caused the kings of the realm to become corrupted.
Man i hope this series never ends I'd love to see positives and negatives come back .... Tho
At least with this episode, you get attracts and repels
12:48
Surely a massive apple didn't lacerate phix's skull
Not after the game LITERATELY told us to hit... the F*&@%$ Tree
Died... xD literately died of laughter here
You LITERALLY didn't
Wow thanks for writing out something I can *hear in the video*
Thank you! I really appreciate you covering these obscure games, rather than bandwagoning on easy targets. Keep up the good work!
Can I just say how impressed I am that you always manage to finish these monstrosities?
I mean, it's the smallest of rewards; but at least the compliment isn't killing you 317 times.
13:40 that wasn't a coin, it was a water basin. Based on the gag of someone opening a door only to get soaked with water from a bucket, in Japan, the gag often ends with there just being no water in the bucket
These legends just 100% the game for OUR entertainment
This makes me wonder if this was a game that got made early or at least halfway in the PS1's lifespan... but was either canned or stuck in dev hell before finally being released. How it's a joke of archaic design compared to many other PS1 3D platformers that came before it, how it has clipping issues that are pathetic even for a PS1, how the clipping/collision detection is so bad you constantly walk on top of terrain and fall THROUGH THE FLOOR, how badly lacking it is in camera control and mostly relies on static camera angles like early PS1 games, and how it has no DualShock support for controlling the camera despite the fact that even Spiro 1 from 1998 supported that and the back of the case claims it supports it... it reeks of a game that was cancelled or just stuck in dev hell and with the PS1 on it's way out they just pulled this off the shelf and rushed it out with all of it's old code that was likely written long before release. I wouldn't be surprised if the single-pixel collectables were just placeholders for whatever graphic they were meant to be that they never bothered or even forgot to finish.
An interesting theory but even then how did this make it out of said development hell? And not only get out of Development Hell, be obviously terrible but still get translated when the iron is ice cold. So you're not even shifting units due to there being no competition. And everyone already has a copy of Cash Banooka at the very least.
@@NEEDbacon Like I said, they might have just shipped what they already had, essentially a beta version. Maybe just patching up one or two small things that utterly crashed the game or so. A case of "Nobody will care about this PS1 game after the PS2 is out, if we don't ship it now as-is we will ship it never" and figured they could at least make some of the dev costs back. Don't forget the Japanese version came out in 2000, the same year as the PS2.
@@Cyber_Akuma Honestly, Twisted Metal Small Brawl comes to mind more then anything. If not even Twisted Metal was getting love for a weirdo sequel still on the PS1. Then you may very well have a point about them shoving this out the door just to recoup SOMETHING.
I could just watch this "just bad games" the whole day. They are so good. The tiny dots and the constant screaming were hilarious, I was really laughing out loud
18:33: Hundred dollars says that 99.9% of the budget was used for the *jiggle*
If this game got released recently, that boss would get popular with some "certain" artists...
@@Spongyboi897 Mmmmmmmmmhhmmmmmmmmmm
To make the white pixel collectibles even worse, picture what this would've been like playing the game back when it first came out, when TVs were small and put out comparatively tiny resolutions, and we didn't have the luxury of blowing up the image through emulation or external hardware. Finding such minuscule items under those conditions would be hell, especially in stages where the pixel blends into the environment's bright colors.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was why the camera was so zoomed in on the normal levels, and why no such collectibles exist on boss levels - to make it the slightest bit easier to find those pixels.
It wouldn't be so bad if they just fixed the clipping. There's some potential here for an ok game.
Phixed the clipping more like.
So I do want to point out that the tree dropped a basin of water, not a coin. It's apparently a very common comical object to drop on top of cartoon character's heads in Japan, similar to anvils in the US.
Doesn't fix the game though.
Ironic that a game called "Phix" is so broken.
Phix needs fixed!
Notice the title - Phix: The Adventure
I can't help but wonder if the localization team was in on the joke...
Can we Phix it? No it's fucked!
This was one of the best episodes on teh channel. A game noone ever seems to have played, much less completed at any point in time, which you finished 100%. I can imagine a Dev's soul finally resting in peace after this episode. Also, It's a gaming preservation effort gem. It must have been extraordinarily hard, but KUDOS to youi guys for suffering through it!
21:27 Wow... the sounds Phix makes are just ... really irritating. Imagine bieng stuck listening to something like that on repeat?
I still can't believe you guys sat through this entire game and rewatched all of your footage probably multiple times - you're crazy. lol
This brings Pixel Hunting to a new NEXT LEVEL ... haha
Just the thing I needed to make me feel better... Im sick and this helps
same here
This does feel like a game where those optional collectables and extra levels are required for a good ending, is that a thing here or is the ending just that dumb all the time?
They said in the video that they get nothing for the collectables EXCEPT the 'challenge' mode
And the challenge mode rewards NOTHING
That final line struck me as a goofy ending fit for the goofy premise. It would hardly be the first time that gag's been used.
16:39 introducing the worlds smallest video game collectibles. Teeny tiny micro pixels that bounce
You know what I just realized that makes it even worse?
The hint that mentions the "one condition" which obviously alludes to the pixel sized collectables?
*It's in the part of the manual talking about the training mode, basically showing that the collectables are tied to that mode only.*
They straight up show that the collectables and 100% the game was not gonna be worth it by having that one tiny part be in the section about the training mode, but still wanted players to talk about it by keeping that part in for the mystery!
I kinda want to see a remake of this game that actually functions as intended.
There would need to be enough interest in remaking this game for that to happen, but it's so bad, it would likely need a complete overhaul to be phixed
@@matthewkuscienko4616 If Bubsy can come back (TWICE!), then anything can.
It DOES function as intended. The developers were likely just a bunch of jerka**es.
Bad games never get remake for some reason.
@@fandomwanderer6334 And then there are some games that are too awful beyond belief to even TRY & remake.
So, there's no extra ending for getting those collectibles? I'm assuming they're fairies whose combined magical power could get you off the island. Otherwise, why have an ending where you're stuck on the island?
"If you clear one condition during the game, it will..."
Really? This can be said about any game. Multiple times.
It is the most vague ever.
It’s as bad as the Locksmith (NES) ending.
Fun Fact: I've got the Japanese version of this game
My Japanese relatives gave me a Japanese PS1 and over 80 games for it, including this game
Love the show . Very well made , super funny . I actually look forward to your vids . Thank you for making me smile .
I have to wonder if anyone even achieved 100% completion on this game before Rerez did, given the literal pixel hunt collectibles and the game's extreme obscurity.
Clicked the notification at light-speed. Always love watching these
Same
7:24 The Ghost Of Wasted Money must be swimming in that water.
9:01 I didn't know this game was programmed by the Glitch Gremlin!
11:01 I guess I spoke too soon about the Glitch Gremlin.
18:13 Collectibles the size of hydrogen atoms? Apparently, it ain't absurd enough that Bubsy 3D was butchered beyond belief by a bunch of Laughing Joking Numbnuts who probably tried to program the whole doggone thing in a week!
20:37 Seriously?
4:20 An action-adventure game for the whole family? Everybody's a comedian!
Honestly, this concept would probably make for a interesting 2D game; be it a puzzle solving or side scroll platformer.