While not the first review I had in mind for my return at SuperPhillip Central for 2025, Goof Troop ended up being an enjoyable romp once I finally knocked it out of my backlog. Let's quantify just how MUCH of an enjoyable romp it was with my retro review of the Super Nintendo's Goof Troop.
"A Goofy Game"
This past week saw the 30th anniversary of "A Goofy Movie", so I opted to dive back into the past and play a game sitting in my Super Nintendo backlog for decades now: Goof Troop. Interestingly enough, Goof Trip on the SNES was one of Shinji Mikami's (of Resident Evil fame, and many other Capcom classics) first projects. While it's a short experience, either alone or with a co-op buddy, Goof Troop is also quite a sweet one, too. Let's dig in because good GWARSH, is this game worth looking at!
Goof Troop's story is simple, and like the adventure itself, short and sweet. Spending a lovely afternoon fishing off the coast of Spoonerville, Goofy and his son Max spot a pirate ship of all things sailing towards them. Upon closer inspection, Goofy and Max spot their neighbors Pete and his son PJ aboard the ship. It's a regular pirate kidnapping! (Well, as regular as that is in Spoonerville, at least!) Goofy and Max hightail it into a small boat and paddle for all they're worth to catch up, but it's for naught. They arrive at an island where the pirate ship has docked, and now the search for their fellow neighbors and friends is underway!
Once the simple slideshow series of scenes with text is finished, the game proper begins and it wastes no time getting you into the action. I was immediately reminded of a cross between Nintendo's fabled The Legend of Zelda series and the oft-overlooked Shigeru Miyamoto Game Boy masterpiece Mole Mania of all games in what Goof Troop was reminiscent of gameplay-wise. You move in between different screen-wide rooms in a top-down perspective, defeating enemies in indirect ways, solving puzzles, collecting keys, and making your way to the boss of each of the game's five levels.
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| Everything in Goof Troop is better with a buddy, but solo play is enjoyable too! |
Goof Troop features indirect combat, with Goofy and Max picking up objects like planters, vases, and barrels, for instance, and using those to chuck at foes to defeat them. Alternately, blocks can be kicked, sliding across the ground to slam into unsuspecting enemies in their path. This is also used for various block-sliding puzzles, too, which are a nice reprieve from the action.
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| There's no water in sight, but this particular pirate just walked the figurative plank anyway! |
Of course, aiming is important when chucking objects, and evading foes' advances is paramount, too, as either protagonist only has a set amount of health in the form of hearts and lives to utilize. However, copious amounts of fruit not only add hearts to their overall health, but if you get over six hearts, your character earns an extra life. Pink diamonds flat out bestow an extra life, whereas rare white gems reward Goofy and Max with an extra continue, if all their lives get spent.
One aspect of Goof Troop's health and lives system that I liked and disliked was rationing hearts. What I mean by this is that as stated, getting more than six hearts on health from picking up fruit means, yes, you do get an extra life, but your health goes back to zero hearts. Meaning that if you take damage afterwards, you immediately lose that life you just earned. This is fine while exploring levels, but in practice with bosses, dying means you come back with zero hearts, which means you're a one-hit wonder and death comes quickly, making it quite easy to fly through lives while battling bosses.
Regardless, those aforementioned white diamonds handing out continues and a password system where you input five objects (diamonds, bananas, cherries, etc.) to return back to the stage you last left off at makes for a lack of headaches entirely. Plus, as mentioned previously, the game isn't a lengthy endeavor whatsoever--offering five stages that will take most players less than two hours to run through.
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| This room requires Goofy and Max to press down all four buttons in each corner of the room. Time to put your thinking caps on and sliding-block-puzzle mastery to the test, friends! |
Goof Troop can either be played alone or with a second player in some very fun co-op action. The former features the ability to play either as Goofy or Max, and the difference between the two is that Goofy is stronger and can defeat bigger foes in one throw, whereas Max requires at least two thrown objects to defeat the biggest of baddies in levels, but has slightly more speed than his ol' dad.
In single-player fun, Goofy or Max have two item slots to pick up useful tools like grappling hooks that can pull objects and items from faraway locations, planks that can be used as bridges, bells that can be rung to lure enemies to their location, torches to light up otherwise incredibly dark areas, shovels to dig up treasure, and keys to open locked gates. In co-op, players each have one item slot, so there's some strategy involved between players to decide who takes what. Also, players can toss objects between one another. Pressing the pickup/throw button has either Goofy or Max hold up their hands. This is required to catch objects, either thrown by enemies or by their co-op buddy--otherwise they're either take damage or in the case of friendly fire, they'll get temporarily dazed.
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| Max plays a game of catch with this pirate while his proud dad Goofy watches on. |
At the end of each stage and in the spirit of games of yore, a boss battle indeed awaits. These generally require moments of downtime between dodging a boss' attempts at attacks, while picking up objects to throw at the big baddie while they are vulnerable. These are the most action-packed and challenging places of moment-to-moment gameplay with Goof Troop understandably, so it's not uncommon to soar through lives during these encounters.
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| This second-stage boss really cooks (especially if a torch hits poor Goofy or Max). |
After the game's five stages are complete within the span of about two hours or less, the game's ending greets players and the adventure is complete. One aspect of Goof Troop that I can see players enjoying is speed-running stages and the game in general, as at the conclusion of each stage, the total time it took a given player or pair of players to get through the stage gets displayed--although not recorded for posterity or anything like that. The total tally of all stages gets shown at the end of the adventure, too, so attempting your best to speed through the game is something I can see for some much needed replay value. Otherwise, Goof Troop would have been a good "rental" back in the day, and nothing more.
That said, Goof Troop on the Super Nintendo's adventure is one where the gameplay holds up so remarkably well, it can be enjoyed either solo or with a co-op partner (and each playthrough is unique depending on the vibe and teamwork you display between your co-op buddy), and speed-running opportunities offer plenty of entertainment to be had. Is it a game you'll rack up dozens upon dozens of hours enjoying? No, not at all--but is it a stellar puzzle-adventure game all the same, worth checking out if you have the method or opportunity to do so? As the Goof Troop cartoon's theme concludes, "Ba-da-ba-bop-ba-doo-doo-bop! *deep voice* YEAAAAAH!"
[SPC Says: B]
