Retro Monday - Flicky

Back when I first got my GameCube, I went out and bought Melee, Super Monkey Ball 2, and Sonic Mega Collection. One night when I didn't have much to do, I decided to unlock some of the extra games and see what they were like. One in particular, Flicky, was one I hadn't played before and one I didn't expect much from. What I found, however, was some seriously addictive arcade fun.

Flicky is a game where your only goal is to collect and guide a bunch of baby chicks, called "Chirps", to an exit without being caught by Tiger the housecat or Iggy the iguana. Do that, you move onto the next stage. And, like most arcade games, there's a high risk/high reward factor. Delivering a lot at one time gives you a lot of bonus points, but it's quite a bit more difficult to do than just grabbing one or two at a time as they can get scattered quite easily.

The charm of Flicky is still somewhat of a mystery to me. Aside from being the little characters that you rescue at the end of each level in Sonic The Hedgehog, there really isn't any attachment or hugely historical significance to the characters or the game. Like I said, I didn't play or even know about Flicky until 2003, nearly 20 years after it came into being and over a decade after I'd first played a Sonic game. Still, the classic addictive arcade gameplay was there, and even without anyone to challenge with fancy things kids are spoiled with now like leaderboards I still enjoyed trying to beat my old scores or just see how far I could get. I think it's that part of me that still boots up Galaga to see if I "still got it". That part of me that remembers the days when all I needed for about 10-20 minutes of entertainment was a quarter and some determination. That's the side that Flicky appeals to.


These days, if you want to try Flicky you either need to hunt down a copy of Sonic Mega Collection for the last-gen systems (PS2, GameCube, XBox, PSP) or you can find it on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for the 360 or PS3. All of which are easily found for less than 20 bucks and worth every penny for fans of the old Genesis carts. I doubt I'll ever see it as a title that's available for download aside from just maybe on the 360's Game Room, but it's a title that deserves some love and still makes me smile each time.