This is an ongoing list where I attempt to do the following: Play, Complete, and Rank every video game in the known universe in order to finally answer the age old question "What is the greatest game of all time?" For previous entries find the links on the attached spreadsheet.

How did I do?

I have to admit that I never played Goof Troop growing up. It was never on my radar, I would see it in stores and think that this was some child's game that I was too old for. Despite being a huge fan of Co-Op games, I was desperately trying to get my friends to play through Secret of Mana with me or play through Turtles in time for the 200th go around. No one talked about it growing up and thus by the time I moved on from the Super Nintendo it faded into obscurity. Fast forward to when I am an adult and trying to re-purchase my childhood, I start re-collecting games for the Super that I already had. After those purchases (it wasn't a lot), I remember looking at lists for what people considered great games on the SNES. There were your expected classics, but then coming in somewhere around the 20th greatest SNES game was Goof Troop. I wish I could find the list again, but alas I just don't care that much, but I remember reading the blurb about it and it mentioned what a great couch co-op game it was, because it didn't fit into the mold of other co-op games of the time. That always stuck with me, and sometime much later, I went to my local game store (which isn't really local for me) and they had a complete copy on the shelf for like $40. I took it off their hand and now we can talk about Goof Troop.

In the game Goof Troop, you can play as either Goofy or his son Max (both if you play Co-op) as they attempt to rescue their friend Pete and his son from pirates that have mistakenly taken Pete because he resembles their boss. The main characters you pick determine if you value power or speed more. Goofy is more powerful and can take out bigger enemies with a single barrel toss (the preferred method of fighting), while Max would require two barrels, but on the flip side Max is a faster moving character, which will help you when outrunning enemies or dodging projectiles. In each of the five worlds, you are tasked with essentially navigating a maze of screens until you get to the boss of the world and then beat it to move on. The screens themselves can be as simple as walking in a general direction off screen, can require you to clear all the enemies on the screen, to solve a puzzle using sliding blocks, or require you to have an item to pass. If you are playing Co-op, each character can only have one item at a time, so there is a push and pull over what is needed and what you can survive without. If you are playing solo, you can have two items that you can alternate through. In both instances, unless you know exactly what is coming up, you are probably going to have to end up backtracking through the maze to find items that you need to progress through the areas.

There are a handful of items that you can pickup, and most of them are used as puzzle pieces for later areas. A loose board, allows you to cross a small gap. A grappling hook can be used to push back enemies, or to create a rope bridge on special hooks. There are two different types of keys that open up either locked doors, or the boss door. A shovel that allows you to dig in certain areas for a chance to dig up fruit or gems which increase lives/continues. A candle that illuminates dark areas, slightly, and there is a bell, which allows you to call enemies to you. The bell is really only useful when you either want to lure them to their death, or to call them off your partner if they are being hounded. You rarely have to backtrack to find bells or shovels as these aren't really required for progressing through the maze, but everything else you can assume if it is out there, then it probably has a use somewhere in the world.

The other aspect of this game is, I suppose described as fighting, but Max and Goofy don't really fight. There are enemies on most of the screens, and they come in various forms, but ultimately all will do damage to you. Some throw projectiles, some just lumber after you, etc. You really only have two ways of dealing with nearly every enemy you come across. If there are barrels, coconuts, or vases on the ground you can pick them up and throw them at the enemy. Or if there is a hole in the screen (water, pit, etc.) and you have the hook-shot you can keep poking them with the hook-shot near the edge until they fall in. Because most screens don't have pits for the enemies to fall in, and only a limited number of barrels of throwable items, you have to be very precise with your shots, or you could run out of ways to attack. In this instance you simply have to leave the screen and come back, as that resets enemies and throwable items.

Make it to the end of the level and you fight a boss. Each boss behaves differently (obviously) but they all need a way to constantly supply you with throwable objects since you can't just run in and out of the room to re-spawn things. Whether that is the boss themselves throwing projectiles that then end up in the world, or other characters who toss stuff down, you win every fight by throwing items at the boss. I understand 100% why this route is taken. You can't run the risk that the player brought the wrong item to the fight and now they can't beat the boss, and you don't want to find yourself with limited resources where if the player misses a lot, then they have to kill themselves to get another shot, but it does take what I think is a pretty interesting concept for the rest of the game and then force it to rely on what can be a frustrating combat arena to advance. A perfect example of this is the final boss, which spoilers, is the real pirate captain. He has a varied move-set where he can summon lesser pirates, shoot a gun, attempt to attack you with a hook-shot, or do a tornado spin where he drops bombs as he spins. The only way to damage him, is to throw the bombs that he drops back at him, but you can't hit him while he is doing the tornado spin. We struggled a lot with this fight, as we should (it's the final boss), but there were sometimes long periods of time between when he would drop bombs and when he would do other attacks. Sometimes he would do his tornado spin, and not drop a single bomb within reach of us to pickup and throw at him before they exploded (short fuses). Then we would have to wait and hope that he goes for the bomb move again, and gives us something useful instead of any of his other attacks. That is a whole lot of dodging to damage dealing to try and survive.

Which is why we should talk about how health works in this game. Goofy and Max are not your typical heroes, and thus can't take punishment like other games can. Default they die in a single hit, whether that is from a pirate walking into them, getting hit with a projectile, or anything in between. One single hit and they lose a life and start at the entrance to that screen. There are fruit pickups scattered throughout the level that serve two purposes. When picked up they add 1 to two hearts under your name. Get enough hearts and they give you an 1up, however if you get hit you lose all your hearts but escape death. Whether that means you had one heart to your name, or 5, a single blow drops you down to zero. When it comes to boss fights, you better believe that there is not pieces of fruit on that screen, so unless you walk in with hearts already, every boss hit is a death. It can be brutal on some bosses, especially if you catch a little bit of bad luck, that you can see your stock of extra lives deplete rather quickly. Lose all your lives and its game over, you have a few continues, which will nicely allow you to start back at the beginning of the boss fight, but lose all your continues and you need to start the whole level over. We only had this happen once, and it was the last level. Once you know and remember the pattern of where you need to go and what items you need, it's not that bad, but it still took us a little bit just to make it back to the boss.

One of the boons for playing Co-Op is, as long as one person survives the screen, the other player can come back to life on the next screen with 3 lives. On boss rooms this doesn't mean much, because you can't step out to revive your buddy and then continue on fighting, but on any other screen of the game, you can quickly back in and out of a screen and viola! back in business. This little rule allowed us to be a little bit looser in our approach to some rooms. We would maybe try to squeeze past enemies in the hopes of getting past instead of re-setting the room and making sure each and every throw was precise. Had I been playing single-player, you certainly have to take the rooms much more cautiously.

I think that explains literally everything the game is about, but not really how I felt about the game. After our first session with the game, I left the game feeling pretty good about it. It almost made me want to draw some maps of my own so we wouldn't get lost, or to help us remember where specific items are, but in reality the levels aren't that large that it is necessary. Plus playing with two people, meant we could tap into either of our memory banks in order to try and remember where we left that candle, or board without having to consult some hand-drawn map. When we beat the game on our second session I was slightly more down on it, but not drastically to dislike the game. I was bummed that the game was so short, only 5 levels, and the enemy variety gets old pretty fast. I enjoyed most of the boss fights (especially the two bug one), but would have probably liked a little more puzzle elements to the boss fights as well. That being said, this game is 100% meant to be played with two people on the couch side by side, and it really loses something if you play it solo. Is it playable solo, sure, but it was designed co-op first. Limiting the items you have to only one, having Max and Goofy play slightly differently so that you can take advantage of their strengths and cover up their weaknesses, that is what was intended.

The levels themselves are fairly varied and fun. I never felt like I was re-treading on the previous levels based on re-used aesthetics. Sure you could argue level 1 and 2 are basically the beach, and beachy cave, but the worlds are colorful and the music is jovial that it never rubbed me the wrong way. It would have been a pretty bad look for the game, if they only made 5 levels and 2 or 3 of them felt like re-hashes of previous levels. I also enjoyed using my brain on some of the sliding puzzles. The very last one you have to solve, had me and my buddy sitting and staring at the screen trying to walk through a potential process for a good 10 minutes. That might be because we are older and potentially dumber now, but I can't imagine kids sitting there and trying to piece it together without a lot of trial and error.

Now I got this game solely on the recommendation of a single list that said Goof Troop is around the 20th greatest SNES game of all time, do I agree? Eh... not so much. I think Goof Troop is a solid game, and one I should have played as a kid, but I don't think it is in the pantheon of Mario, Zelda, Chrono, Final Fantasy, NBA Jam, and the ilk. It might be the 20th greatest multiplayer game on the SNES, but falls a little further down when you take the whole library into consideration.

Is this the greatest game of all time?: No

Where does it rank: All that being said, I am pretty happy with my purchase of Goof Troop. I can't say that I will fire it up often, or that it will become a co-op staple with my buddies, but I think its a solid game to have the collection, and it will be very handy to play in a little bit when my kids can handle a game with a little more critical thinking. How much is my fondness for the game, and how much is my fondness for just the SNES and its era? Can't really say, but I have it ranked as the 24th Greatest Game out of 105 games. It sits below "Griftlands" (23rd) and above "Wind Waker" (25th).

Up Next

1. Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot: The First Cases (Switch)

2. Harvest Moon: Magical Melody (GC)

3. Gravity Falls: The Secret of the Gnome Gemulets (3DS)

Anyone looking for it: here is the link to the list and more if you are interested in following along with me (this is not a self promotion). Here. I added links on the spreadsheet for quick navigation. Now if you missed a blog of a game you want to read about, you can get to it quickly, rather than having to scroll through my previous blogs wondering when it came up.