Graphics/Sound: As I just said, weird. You play as an earthworm that found a space suit (my copy didn't have the manual so I don't know if there's any back story). The coloring of the graphics is pretty unique compared to the colorful ness of most games of the time. The environments are something you've never seen before. The first stage is a junk yard stage. Filled with tires, mad dogs off to get you and killer crows who feast on worms (a.k.a you) and a mini boss made of trash cans. And that's just the start. When most platform games had fire stages, this game has a hell stage. Yeah the stage looks like hell. With a little devil looking shape dancing in the back, sounds of whips and a loud screaming voice and of course the number one resident of hell, lawyers. I'd also like to highlight that the stages themselves have weird names like "What the heck?" and "For Pete's sake!". The animation is also really smooth and in my opinion the best in any Mega Drive/SNES platform game. This is one of the most artistic games I have ever played. To tell you the truth the graphics are not really to my liking but I respect what the creators tried to do, and I can see how many people will like this game for how original it is, even by today's standards. The sound effects are also of high quality, I specially like the sounds Jim makes when it's game over or he loses a bonus round space race. And the music can be, you guess it, weird. Overall this game scores a lot of points for it's artistic direction, and wacky (but kind of nerdy) humor.
Gameplay/Controls: This is a run and gun game, like Contra or Metal Slug, but actually plays more like a Sonic or Mario game. Now I like Metal Slug a lot, but the truth is the only platforming you get to do in those games, is jumping over bullets. Earthworm Jim is actually one of the few run and gun games where the platforming is as big a part of the challenge as shooting things. It can be quite demanding, specially in the later stages, where you must jump over giant boulders, or jump from ledge to ledge. The boss fights are great, with unique bosses, that always differ on the way to beat them (my favourite is the water world boss, it's a gold fish in it's jar that you just have to spill to kill it, then again after the stage you had to go through to get there, you deserve a break). The stages have many set pieces that are fun (the level 5 one where you are in a cage ball and enemies come from every direction and you have to shoot them down comes to mind), that don't repeat themselves, so every stage is refreshing, and you don't get the deja vu feeling other games give you. This game was made for the Mega Drive and the controls are the reason this game should have stayed on it. You can shoot at the 8 directions of the Mega Drive's gamepad, the game uses 3 buttons, one for whipping one for shooting and one for jumping and of course the start button pauses. It plays really well. You can adjust the jump after you've taken off, and slow down your fall by tapping the jump button so Jim helicopters his way down with his head. The Mega Drive pad was built for 2D platforming games and this game takes advantage of it to the fullest.
Last Words: I was pleasantly surprised when I played this game for the first time. It stands the test of time really well and I'd advise any serious platform gamer to find this game. It was also ported to the GBA (if you can't find the Mega Drive version) but since I haven't played I don't know if it's a good port (actually the only 16-bit ports that were good on the GBA were the Mario ones so I wouldn't get my hopes up) but even if it was there's no way GBA's tiny D-pad can compare to the sweet controls this game has on the Mega Drive
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