| Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday | |
|---|---|
 Front cover art of the North American release | |
| Developer | Phoenix |
| Publisher | Sunsoft |
| Director | Joe Booth |
| Designer | Darren Melbourne[3] |
| Artist | Paul McGee |
| Writer | Joe Booth |
| Composers | Kev Bateson[a] Jez Taylor |
| Platform | SNES[4] |
| Release | |
| Genres | Platformer[1] Action[5] |
| Mode | Single-player[6] |
Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday is a 1995side-scrollingplatform video game developed by Phoenix Interactive Entertainment and published bySunsoft for theSuper Nintendo Entertainment Systemvideo game console. The goal of the game is to guide the main character,Porky Pig from theWarner Bros.cartoons, through hisnightmares. The game received mixed to positive reviews by critics; itsgraphics and animations were received well while its length and easy difficulty were not.
Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday is aside-scrollingplatform game. The main character,Porky Pig, can move left and right, jump,[1][7] swing on chains, climb, enter doorways and ride bubbles underwater.[8][9] Standing on some platforms causes a vampire-costumedDaffy Duck to appear, scaring Porky and propelling him up into the air to reach high places.[10] Enemies in alevel can be defeated either by jumping on them or hitting them with fruit after collecting a fruit bowlpower-up.[11][12]
At the beginning of the game, Porky starts with fivelives and the goal is to make it to the end of all levels.[13] Porky loses a life if all of his hearts are lost, which happens if Porky is hit by an enemy.[11]Checkpoints that look like a redX mark are scattered throughout the levels. Going past a checkpoint makes Porky stick a flag into the ground and that's where he'll start from if a life is lost later in the level. If all lives are lost, there is an unlimited continue to feature that restarts the player in the same level.[12]
The player is introduced to the story of the game with one in-gamecutscene.[6] The story goes as following: On the night beforePorky Pig's vacation starts, he goes to bed. Asleep, he starts havingnightmares where he meets different scary characters.[13] In order to wake up, he must travel through all of the levels in the game.[11]
There are several different types ofpower-ups and items in the game. Collecting the fruit bowl mentioned earlier supplies Porky with unlimited fruit to throw at enemies until he loses a life. Heart items found scattered in the levels refills one of his hearts. Picking up 100 cupcake power-ups, which an on-screen counter keeps track of,[14] rewards the player with an extra life. There is also a cake power-up to collect, which increases the in-gamescore. A potion power-up will, if collected by Porky, inflate him for a limited time.[15][7] He then starts to float and can be moved up, down and as always left and right.[9]
There are six levels and at the end of each level is aboss.[13][12] Between levels, a world map displays the player's progress. The first level,The Haunted Woods, takes Porky through a forest withgoblins,ghosts, magical walking cauldrons, spiders,leprechauns andbats.[1] Notable is also a tree with a rotating 3D-effect.[1][5] In the end of the level a boss named Spooky Sid is fought. The second level isDry Gulch Town, and it takes Porky through awestern type of town, includingtumbleweed andcaged hooligans while foes withmoose trophies with rifle barrels showing from their mouths, whereSix Shootin' Sheriff Sam is the boss in the end of the level. The third level first takes place on a small raft and later on under the sea in the Ruins ofAtlantis. Diving turkeys andbarracudas are enemies found there, and Porky can ride on bubbles exhaled from a special kind of sea creature. And Willie Great White is the boss foe. In the fourth level, an abandonedmine,Hyde Tweety is the boss. The fifth level is in the SnowyAlps, which will eventually transcend into a delusional landscape where it literally rains cats and dogs as well as fish skeletons[6]Monster Max is the boss of that level. In the sixth and final level, Porky goes through the castle ofDaffy The Count Duck and clashes withHerman the robot boss in his chamber as the final boss.[1][7]
In the options screen, three differentdifficulty levels can be selected. Asound test feature and a controller configuration setting is also available.
Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday was developed by Phoenix Interactive Entertainment. Darren Melbourne designed the core elements of the game while Kev Bruce composed the music and sound effects.The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down song, also known as theLooney Tunes theme, was added to the game.[3] Notable graphical effects includeparallax scrolling and a weather effect which means that every time the game is played the weather can be different. For example: sometimes it may be snowing and sometimes it may be raining.[8][6]
The game's publisher was originallyHudson Soft, who owned the license to publish games with Warner Bros. characters at the time, but it sold the rights toPorky Pig's Haunted Holiday on toAcclaim Entertainment from 1995 to 2004 and 2025 onwards.[16] The game was ultimately published bySunsoft. Some versions of the game were distributed by Acclaim and some by Sunsoft, both under license ofWarner Bros.[17][18]
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| GameRankings | 66.50%[19] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Nintendo Life | 6 out of 10[8] |
| Nintendo Power | 3.25 out of 5[7] |
| Super Play | 72%[6] |
| Super Power (FR) | 83%[1] |
Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday received mixed to positive reviews. Thegraphics and animations received praise as well as the weather system, about which a reviewer fromElectronic Gaming Monthly commented: "It's a great idea; it should be used more often". Generally well received was also the music and sound effects, although some reviewers found the music loops to be too short. In addition, the controls in the game were considered by some critics to be easy to use. On the other hand, some critics thought the challenge of the game was too easy and the levels too short and/or too few. Also, some reviewers thought the game was unoriginal and just reused many gameplay elements popularized by other games in the same genre. Most of the critics recommended the game for younger children.[b]
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