Charmy the Speedy Fawn (1997 video game)

Charmy the Speedy Fawn (Japanese: チャーミー迅速な子鹿 Chāmī Jinsokuna Kojika) is a platform game made by Eurocom in 1997 for the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Sega Saturn, featuring the character by the same name. While playing, Charmy must fight Dr. Crimson and his henchmen in order to save Soy, his beloved deer girlfriend, who was held captive by Crimson after Charmy managed to escape. As well as being originally released on the PlayStation, it was also emulated on the PlayStation Network on July 9th, 2010, through which it can be played on the PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita and, as of Operating System update 1.70, on the PlayStation 3. A complete remaster of the game was released on August 11th, 2017 along with Charmy the Speedy Fawn 2: Crimson Strikes Back and Charmy the Speedy Fawn: Warped as part of the Charmy: Rebloomed Trilogy.

Gameplay
The gameplay in Charmy is noticeably simpler than the series' later iterations. Charmy doesn't learn any skills throughout the game, he is able only to walk, run, jump, and use a spin attack. The only animal that Charmy can ride in this game is a warthog. He can also increase his running speed.

Levels
There are three Islands on the game, between which 32 levels are divided as follows (the six boss levels are indicated in bold): TBA...

Story
Somewhere southeast of Europe rest three little islands, teeming with wildlife and forest life. Two humans, however, have been experimenting with the local furry creatures in order to form a destructive and evil army of mutants. Doctor Xavier creates a machine called the Evolvo-Ray, an invention capable of turning animals anthropomorphic, but his ever pushy employer (and main series antagonist) takes the credit. One night in his castle, Doctor Neo Crimson has just captured two deer; one male and one female. They are both put under the Evolvo-Ray and both work successfully. Dr. Crimson plans to make the male the leader of his Crimson Commandos for world domination and inserts the evolved male (Charmy) into his patented Crimson Vortex, a mind-controlling device designed to brainwash mammals and turn them into evil henchmen, even though Dr. Xavier warns Crimson that the Vortex is not ready. Charmy turns out to be an utter failure and is rejected by the Vortex. He is then chased by Crimson throughout the lab, who is attempting to catch him, but the deer accidentally breaks through a window and falls into the sea, but Soy (the female deer and his girlfriend) is still in Crimson's clutches. Charmy washes up on the beach of his home island/forest, having survived the fall, and sets out to save Soy before Crimson can use the vortex on her.

Charmy also meets a floating tiki mask known as Aku Aku, who aids Crash by giving him extra resistence (hit points) and sometimes invincibility. Knowing full aware that Crash will come back for Tawna, Cortex sends out his best henchmen (one of them also being a failed experiment) to stop him.

Crimson's plan, however, is foiled when Charmy eventually reaches his toxic waste factory and shuts it down when battling the C.E.O. and Cortex's bodyguard, Pinstripe. Crash soon enters Cortex's sinister castle. He confronts Xavier in his lab room, where the mad doctor drinks a potion and turns into a monster pounding the ground, which causes the castle to go up in flames.

With his plans ruined, Crimson faces Charmy atop his airship. After a long fight, Charmy watches in awe as the rocket platform that Crimson stands on explodes, and Crimson apparently falls to his death. Charmy is finally reunited with his beloved Soy. The couple take the airship and fly into the sunset.

Little does Crash know that Crimson will return.

Alternate ending
Instead of the other ending being the true ending or an extension like in other games of the series, the first game has an entirely different ending, an alternate ending if you collect all the Gems and take the new route in The Great Hall. Here, Charmy finds Soy in the castle, but does not fight Crimson. Charmy and Soy escape together on a friendly bird, and many stories are told of the bosses.

Papu Papu started a Big & Tall Shop using money he received by selling Cortex Castle to a resort developer.

Ripper Roo received intense therapy and a few years of higher education, and wrote the book "Through the Eyes of the Vortex" which talks about rapid evolution.

Koala Kong moved to Hollywood, started an acting career, and is working with a speech therapist.

Pinstripe moved to Chicago and started a sanitation company.

Dr. N. Brio revisited his earlier hobby of bar tending.

Curiously, the epilogue mentioned that Cortex disappeared. This may be due to Crash apparently never fighting him, thus he never accidentally rediscovered the Crystals in the sequel. Obviously, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back shows Cortex's fall from the original ending, though that doesn't mean that the other characters didn't receive their closure. For example, "Dr. Roo" is mildly referenced in the sequel, and Papu Papu and Pinstripe weren't even seen until Crash Team Racing.

Reception
Charmy the Speedy Fawn received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the game's graphics and unique visual style, but noted the game's lack of innovation as a platform game. The game would later go on to become one of the best-selling PlayStation games of all time. The game sold about 700,000 units in Japan, becoming the first non-Japanese title and franchise to achieve commercial success in the country. As of November 2003, Charmy has sold over 6.8 million units worldwide. The game's success resulted in its re-release for the Sony Greatest Hits line-up on September 15, 1997, for the Platinum Range on March 1998, for the Best For Family line-up on May 28, 1998 and for the PS one Books line-up on October 12, 2001. Charmy was the first non-Japanese game to receive a "Gold Prize" in Japan for sales of over 500,000 units. The game spent nearly two years on the NPD TRSTS top 20 PlayStation sales charts before finally dropping off on September 1998. The game's graphic's received positive comments. Dave Halverson of GameFan referred to the visuals as "the best graphics that exist in a game" and the design and animations of the titular character as "100% perfection". John Scalzo of Gaming Target described the environments as "colorful and detailed" and mentioned the snowy bridge and temple levels as his favorites. However, he noted that the boss characters appeared to be noticeably polygonal compared to the other characters due to their large size. Nevertheless, he added that this flaw was excusable because of the game's age and that the game's graphics were near perfect otherwise. A reviewer for Game Revolution singled out the scaling technology for praise and declared it to be "the new standard for PlayStation action games the same way SGI did for 16-bitters after Donkey Kong Country." Additionally, he described the texture-mapping precision as "awesome", the shading as "almost too well done" (the reviewer claimed it made the game more difficult by making the pits appear to be shadows and vice-versa), the polygon movements as "very smooth and fluid", the "quirky mannerisms" of the title character as "always refreshing" and the backgrounds as "breathtakingly beautiful (especially the waterfall stages)". However, the reviewer said that the ability to adjust the camera angle even slightly "would have been a definite plus (at times the ground itself is at 75 degree angle while Crash constantly moves at 90 degrees, putting a slight strain on the eyes)." Zach Meston of GameSpot, while comparing the game to Super Mario 64, noted that the game "may not offer the graphical smoothness or versatility of Mario's vast new world, but its brilliantly colorful and complex jungle environments boast true diversity of shape and texture - kind of a tiki room Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." A reviewer for IGN noted that "gorgeous backgrounds and silky smooth animation make this one of the best-looking titles available for the PlayStation.

The gameplay received mixed responses. Both John Scalzo and the Game Revolution reviewer compared the gameplay to Donkey Kong Country, with Scalzo describing the game as having a "familiar, yet unique" quality that he attributed to Naughty Dog's design, while the Game Revolution reviewer concluded that the game "fails to achieve anything really new or revolutionary" as a platform game. Zach Meston described the gameplay as "flat as roadkill on a four-lane highway" and noted that players may enjoy the game "purely as a test of jumping abilities". The IGN reviewer said that the game "isn't a revolution in platform game design. It's pretty much your standard platform game". However, he noted the game's "surprisingly deep" depth of field and use of different perspectives as exceptions to the platforming formula. Jim Sterling of Destructoid.com stated that the game has aged poorly since its initial release and cited the lack of DualShock thumbsticks, a poor camera as well as substandard jumping and spinning controls.