The Flintstones

The Good
The Flintstones for the SEGA Master System is a port of a previously released computer game. It has nice graphics, better than most of the computer versions. This version has added splash screens before each level with nicely drawn images displaying what is about to happen in game.

It is nice that the gameplay is varied, you have four stages with different styles of gameplay, but that doesn't mean they're always fun to play, unfortunately.

The Bad
I imagine someone looking at the screenshots of this game in some magazine would be thinking "wow, that looks great, this game must be awesome", only to be disappointed by it when getting to actually play the game.

The Flintstones has often been described as a collection of mini-games stitched together without much care. I get what the developers were trying to do here, it was supposed to be something like a playable version of an episode of the TV show. But what makes it look like several mini-games is that the story isn't told really clearly to be cohesive. The first three levels go well together: in the first one, Wilma tells Fred to paint a wall, but he wants to go bowling with Barney, so he must first finish the job, then go play. Something that makes little sense in this version is that they've replaced the ceiling in the living room with the sky, so it seems you're painting a wall outdoors, which seems weird since there's a TV in the scene. The second level has Fred driving on his way to the bowling alley. The third level is his match against Barney at the bowling alley. So far, so good. But the fourth level has Fred trying to rescue Pebbles from a construction site. This comes out of nowhere, there's no explanation for why she's there. In the Amiga version, right after the bowling match ends, there's an image of a newspaper informing that Pebbles has gone missing and Wilma is looking for her, but in this version, there's no such thing. The splash screen before level four reads "Fred must rescue Pebbles and bring her back", but it's just that, no mention of why she got lost in the first place.

The whole game is very short, the second level can be finished in less than 30 seconds! Speaking of the second level, it is really weird that in a racing level there's no side-scrolling! The car is shown moving from left to right and once it reaches the edge of the screen, the screen is flipped. Maybe this had something to do with the limitations on the hardware for the computer versions, but that shouldn't be the case for this port. While the second level is really short, the third one can take quite some time, and a good part of it is spent watching the animation showing the bowling pins being placed and replaced.

The controls are not good either. They won't be much trouble in the first three levels, but controlling Fred in the last one feels really awkward. You will often fall from platforms even though it looks like you're on top of them just fine. The jumps have this strange floaty feel. Fred will also easily fall from the rope he has to climb down to rescue Pebbles. This makes this level a lot harder than it would be if the controls were OK.

The game has only two songs, the main theme from the TV show and a second theme that is played throughout the whole game. You have the option of turning the music off, and it really makes sense to do that, as the song can get a bit annoying. Also, the sound effects are so low the music makes it harder to listen to them. At least they've included a digitized version of Fred's "Yabba-Dabba-Doo" yell.

The Bottom Line
The Flintstones for the SEGA Master System has good graphics, but bad gameplay, continuity issues, poor music, and a short playtime. You won't spend much time with it, which might be good in the end. Such a waste of a good license.