Super Fancy Pants adventure approach the narrative in a more Classic Super Mario approach. By that i mean that the game is using small cutscenes and then interacting with characters gives you the full details. The game starts with a
thunderous night where rain kept falling none stop. The next morning Cutie Pants was looking outside of the window and she is amazed by how much the world change from the rain. Pretty much, most of the land was erased and thus the hero's
house which was once on the ground near the golfball pitch find themselves at the top of a cliff. Cutie also mentions that Kaboodle, their cat, runned outside and is now lost and probably scared. Fancy Pants and Cutie go in the basement(cave)
in search of their cat. They found him and rescued him. Whilst rescuing the cat, its claws tear the pages to the outside world and a pen falls in. The hero replaces his pencil with the pen. They then make their way to the city where a woman
mentions that Fancy pants home was the only one left standing. The woman tells the heros to come to the "camp site" where the survivors take refugee and use the kings flipped Bathtub as shelter. Both the hero make their way to the Camp where
the Mayor and the King of Squiggleville seems to be arguing over the incident.
Fancy Pants refuse to sit back and sets to explore and see what else remain of the city. Whilst outside, he notices that a newly form Volcano also exploded causing damaging ink to drop everywhere. This ink drops when land they turn into blob monsters
which threat everything in their way. These blobs only have one weakness, Fancy Pants's new pen weapon. The hero then decides to try and put an end to the monsters by drainning out the ink. In this mission Fancy Pants will be alone but he ll need help
from some old familiar faces.
Will the hero be successfull?
Who will help him?
What will become of his world?
I personally i enjoy the game's attempt on a narrative with mystery and a continuing plot. Comparing it to World 3 straight narrative, Super Fancy Pants is more improved proving Brads constant evolution of teh IP. Additionally we know get confirmations about the entire world being Brads desk notebook and proving that theres world outside of Fancy Pant's world. The usage of Cutscenes is well received and the overall presentation of the game is pretty enjoyable. The cast and even the whole world is more alove than ever, we have NPCs who react to their world and we have familiar faces comming back to play a major role in the plot. The unexpected cliff hanger left me craving for more so it 100% manage to captivate me. Cant wait to return back to the Fancy universe.
Fancy Pants was always about parkouring through levels. It is a 2D side scrawler Platformer were the player controls Fancy Pants. The game was heavily inspired by the likes of Super Mario. The game has the biggest ammount of levels reaching around 50+ excluding the World 1 remix. In the game we control Fancy Pants,
a stick figure with a unique haircut and ofcourse fancy pants. The goal in each level is pretty much to go from the start of the level all the way to the other. To achieve that the hero has to avoid enemies and parkour through platforms. The game is momentum based, where the faster you run the higher you ll jump or the longer you ll slide.
Unlike world 3, Fancy pants cannot climb on walls when sprinting towards them. However, the speed or wall bouncing allows him to jumb further and higher than before. As mentioned, the player can then bounce of the wall to reach higher ground. The level also has certain elements, such as polls and hangers which allow for the man in the Pants
to use to keep his momentum and launch himself further.
Fancy Pants could only defeat the opponents by jumbing on top of them just like super Mario jumbed on Goompas. When the player sprints and holds down, the hero will slide which will once again knock the enemies away. Certain enemies cannot be defeated
by simply jumbing on them as they may have weapons or spike and need to be stunned by missing a hit. Stunned enemies can be kicked away by running towards them, or comboed with a weapon. Kicking usually finishes off the enemy. Fancy Pants starts the adventure with his iconic pencil(weapon)
which he can use to melee monsters. The player can tap the button for Pancy Pants to quicklly attack or hold it down to knock themem away. Certain enemies can only be hit by a charging attack but it requires a couple of blows. The same attacks can happen in the air with potentially different animations.
Ink enemies cannot be defeated by the pencil, however from Chapter 2 which is when the ink monsters appear, the hero already uses the pen.
The pen weapon is Super Fancy Pant's biggest change. On the surface the pen plays exactly like the pencil in terms of mellee attacks and super charged attacks. However new abilities are also acquired. Around the levels, the hero comes across big gaps with paper(sticky notes) in the background. The hero can
jump towards them and by holding the jumb button, the hero will release ink from his pen allowing him to surf on the paper. This alone opens platforming on its own. Similarly, the player unlocks the abilty to ink dash. When taped, fancy pants will shoot ink behind him allowing him to dash forward. Dashing on enemies allow him to combo or
tear through them. Once again this dash ability can be used to expand the parkour outside of combat. Another ability of the pen, is its usage as a minigun. On top right, theres an ink indicator which allows the player to splash enemies with ink. Ink is restored by stepping on ink leaks or melleeing enemy blobs. Splashing ink on certain areas
will create a platform for the hero.
Fancy Pants HP bar is on the top left depicted with a line colored based on his pants and his face is next to it depicting the ammount of lives he has. When the player is hit, he gets knocked away and loses a certain ammount of HP. When multiple enemies
hit the player they lose life until it runs out. When Fancy Pants dies he falls down and will spawn him in the begining. The only way the hero can heal is by collecting Squiggles that can be found around the world.
Collecting Squiggles cannot only be used to heal the hero but can also be used as currency and extra lives. Each time the hero collects 100 the game rewards the player with an extra life. Squiggles can be spent in the store to upgrade the hero. The player can purchase more HP, more strength,
and three pen attacks. The spinning attack used on air from world 3, a spike down attack or an uppercut like attack used while sliding.
From the arcade machines the player can access local multiplayer which supports up to 4 players. In multiplayer the players can:
Honestly, i played Super Fancy Pants straight afte playing the classic Fancy pants adventures games i was amazed by how similar yet different this game felt. Similar to the adventures, this game also aged well and it feels timeless like the rest. The parkour of the game is very smooth and there are plenty of games that came out that still fail to match the parkour or the momentum based agility that Fancy Pants made. The level design was very good, with nice additions(poles,dissappearing platforms etc) and very straight forward with a couple of collectibles to be found. The Sword was greatly improved and not only does it feel good, it can also be upgraded which grants new abilities. All the new additions that the Pen brought were fantastic for both combat and parkour. The squiggles were also given an additional role with the store and the challenge rooms felt challenging. Last but not least i have to praise the addition of Multiplayer. Any game that adds multiplayer and is decent/good will always be praised by me.
Super Fancy Pants can be completed relatively fast as its a small game, nevertheless there are a couple of things the player can do to get some extra time off the game. The first thing being the Challenge Rooms. Around the world there are the usual doors that include unique levels. These levels are short but are build in order to test your skills and abilities. At the end of each door, the player will receive a cosmetic. Cosmetics come in the form of colored pants and different hats/head equipment. The player can collect them from the challenge rooms and by eliminating enemies who wear them. Inside the bathtub, Fancy Pants can access the arcade machines. The 1st machine allows the player to play the Remix version of World 1. This includes the final version of World 1 with all the bonus levels and a new final boss. Additionally, World 1 remix can be played in Local Multiplayer. Speaking of Multiplayer the seconds Arcade machine is Multiplayer games. Up to 4 players can join and they can either race(6 levels), Fight(in a smash bros formula), play Volleyball, basketball, or break the wall. These are all small fun editions that actually play very well.
The graphics of the game are reminising of the Flash era of games BUT it's worth mentionning that once again this game's artistic view is once again timeless. Everything is hand drawn and matches Brad Borne's love for the Flipbook animation art.
Most of the cast have unique smooth animations that breath live into the game. The backrounds are well design and expand the world of Fancy by taking us to new places. A great addition was the usage of the breaking of the 4th wall used for narrative and gameplay purposes.
The new enemy variety is welcomed and the new gameplay elemnts have an impact on the world. Most noticable change is the addition of the impact frames each hit you do feels. Small stuff like swing animations, shaking of screen and enemy expression change add much more charm.
The music of the game is quite interesting itself. When the game was made, the music was combosed by Mike Raznick, and individual who grew up to become an industry legends composing multiple melodies for every type of game, from Indies to triple AAA. He worked with industry titans like
Insomniac games(Ratchet and Clank), Tekken, Call Of Duty, Doom, Clash of Clans and others. Some of the songs are iconic, maybe not to the level of Mario but close enough. As mentioned the sound effects of the players strike add to
the satisfying feeling of defeating enemies.
In conclusion, i was amazed by how the series evolved since Fancy Pants World 3. Super Fancy Pants once again improved on everything that World 3 had and added alot of new mechanics to differenciate from the others. The story was done well, everything fell interconnected and the world of Fancy was never more alive. From NPC interactions and from the way characters and 4th wall elements were used. Gameplay wise, the game still is a 2D platformer with emphasis on momentum and speed. Combat was vastly improved with the addition of the pen tool which cannot only used in combat but also to manuver around. The level design is nice and the challenge room were build to test the players skills. The visual and audio department continue to bring this classic handrawn design and melody of the fancy universe. The addition of Multiplayer whether its to play world 1 remix or simply arcade game modes is fun and always welcomed. I was very pleased to have experienced this title and i look forward for Super Fancy Pants 2(if thats the name) as the cliff hanger left me wanting more and Brad's images shared online give me hope for the future.
This is a video of me playing the game.