Ahhh Nostalgia. What a wonderful thing it is. The human ability to look back over years passed and remember them fondly is a gift and is also, of late, a money making extravaganza.

From chocolate bars, to nightclubs to fashion, Nostalgia is big business and now it seems that gaming has nowcottoned on to this idea.  The past 12 months or so have seen a raft of old games rereleased on mobile devices or online console stores, reissued with HD graphics onto discs or completely reimagined. Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk is the latest addition to this catalogue of reminiscence.

For those unfamiliar with our egg based hero and his adventures Dizzy is essentially a sentient egg and lives with his friends and family, The Yolkfolk. Over the eight games that are considered canon Dizzy must platform and puzzle solve to save his friends and defeat his nemesis Wizard Zaks.

Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk is actually the sixth game in the series but is the first to be reissued with new controls and new graphics for a new generation to enjoy. 

Whilst out looking for cherries one day Dizzy and his lady friend Daisy come across a castle, Daisy pricks her finger on a magic spinning wheel and promptly falls fast asleep. Dizzy tries to wake her up but is grabbed by Rockwart the Troll and imprisoned. In order to succeed Dizzy must find and collect items to help the people and creatures he comes across in order to rescue his lady friend.

I have previously mentioned in other reviews that I find controls for mobile gaming can either be really good or really bad and thankfully it appears Codemasters have managed to get the controls perfectly balanced. You control Dizzy with a group of six buttons, three on either side of the screen and whilst occasionally my thumb would obscure the screen I was heading towards, I had no issues with responsiveness from any buttons.

Dizzy also has a new cleaner, brighter look for the 21^st Century.  The game itself is a screen for screen update to the original however you can see the care and attention that has gone into the upgraded graphics. The game resembles something of an interactive cartoon where everything is bright and sunny and it makes you smile simply by playing it.

Another aspect of the game that has been softened is the difficulty. For those of who remember the original series you will also remember the ease at which Dizzy died.  Anything from water, fire, rocks, falls, bats, birds, warthogs and everything in between could kill our half boiled adventurer. In the earlier games you were given three lives and death was instant, once those three lives were gone it was game over. Later games gave Dizzy a health bar that would reduce upon impact with about 80 percent of things in the game but could also be replenished by picking up diamonds or fruits.  This Dizzy update doesn’t remove death entirely but essentially makes it redundant. If you die in this game it’s ok as you’ll respawn just a few feet away from where you met your maker and it doesn’t matter how many times you’ll die as you have an infinite amount of lives – oh and you can save now too!

The removal of death and the reduction in difficulty that this brings is likely to divide gamers. Half the challenge of a Dizzy game was simply not dying and the sense of achievement when you completed a whole game was exhilarating. This achievement is now gone and it’s reduced Dizzy to more of a puzzle solving game than a puzzle survival game. I personally don’t mind it and I have my own idea as to why Codemasters have chosen this route, mobile gaming devices cost a lot of money these days and are much easier to throw around at walls in frustration than a ZX Spectrum or Amstrad computer ever were so I thank them for allowing my device to remain in my hand.

There has only been one issue I have noticed with Dizzy: Prince of Yolkfolk and that is to do with the sound. If I start up the game the sound is fine but if I receive a message or an email of if I close the game and reopen it then the sound drops off completely and I have to force start the application in order for sound to come back. Not sure if this is an issue with the game itself or my device but it is frustrating but probably nothing a patch wont fix.

Gamers have also been a nostalgic crowd, as our gaming experiences have gotten more and more in depth and immersive we have often looked back to times when games were simpler and just included a jump button. Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk is an eggs-cellent reminder of those yester-years and for the price is unbeatable value.

If we’re lucky this could be the first in remakes for the Dizzy series – I have my fingers crossed for Fantasy World Dizzy.

Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk is available now on both iOs and Android devices.

8/10

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