K. C.’s Krazy Chase! (Magnavox Odyssey 2 Review)

K. C.’s Krazy Chase!
aka Crazy Chase (EU) Come-Come (South America)
Platform: Magnavox Odyssey 2
Released September, 1982
Designed by Ed Averett
Developed by Magnavox
Included KC Returns (Windows, Delisted?)
Listing at Odyssey 2 Homepage

Ahhh. That’s the good stuff.

Well, I promised the sequel to K. C. Munchkin, and it’s not like this review was a chore. All the controversy with the original game led to this superior sequel that could never be mistaken for Pac-Man. It’s nothing short of tragic that K. C.’s Krazy Chase was a one-and-done. It was packed in KC Returns! for Windows in 2020, but I couldn’t find it, and it doesn’t matter because it’s not the type of wide release that gives a game its due. Since a stand alone Odyssey 2 collection is highly unlikely, ideally this would be a +1 in Atari 50 DLC, especially since this is the best shot Magnavox ever took at Atari. Maze chases were THE genre of gaming when this came out and Krazy Chase stands tall against even coin-ops of the era, let alone home games. I’ve never played anything like it.

Part of me wonders if they had animated K. C. in the first game like he’s animated in this game if it would have severely undermined the Atari lawsuit. In the first game, K. C. bites even if there’s nothing in front of him, just like Pac-Man. In this game, he rolls and only eats when the situation calls for it, then winks at the camera when you eat the final segment. It’s not a nothingburger change, either. It really does make the game feel less like an attempt at riding Pac-Man coattails and gives it the feel of an earnest effort at one-upping Pac-Man.

Krazy Chase has the same basic premise of a maze and eating moving targets, so initially I wondered if this would feel like a glorified ROM hack. Nope. Instead of chasing dots, you chase a centipede that’s, well, made of dots. Krazy Chase was made at the height of Atari’s Centipede’s fame, where it was arguably the world’s second most famous video game. When I found out about the centipede, I winced a little. After the previous game’s lawsuit, it almost felt like poking a hornet’s net. I admit that I also imagined a cynical attempt to create an unofficial “Pac-Man meets Centipede.” Except, isn’t like that at all (a Konami coin-op called Jungler is exactly that and feels as cynical as I imagined). Krazy Chase remains firmly a munch-em-up maze chase.

Again with the asymmetrical mazes, which is fine.

In addition to having to avoid the centipede’s head (which can never be eaten) you have two ghosts to avoid. Only, you can’t really mistake them for Pac-Man ghosts anymore. When you chomp them, they don’t wander around until they locate the center of the maze (presumably a moment or two after locating their ass with both their hands). They spin around and are stun-locked in place for a while. If you grab another segment while this is happening, their vulnerability resets, just like in the previous game. Waves end when you eat the final segment. Meanwhile, trees appear seemingly randomly in the maze that score you one point but slow you down as you stop to eat them, an effect that lessens as the game progresses. Sort of. ALL movement speed is increased, so it’s really hard to gauge whether you’re making a net gain. This is where the Odyssey 2’s lack of power seems to cause a lot of the problems. It can’t make just the enemies faster or just you faster. It’s an all-or-nothing effect, which is a shame. I wish there could be more trees since they were the main source of the game’s challenge, and I wish the timing of how fast you eat them didn’t have to change with all the other speeds.

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Level 5

As much fun as I had with Krazy Chase, it’s full of missed chances thanks to those hardware limitations. The centipede’s head can eat its own segments if you separate them from the body by eating a center piece. As twisted as this is, there’s no incentive to try and make this happen. It’d be neat if there was some kind of special bonus for triggering this. There’s not enough chasers, and what chasers there are still aren’t very intelligent. The five mazes (no randomly generated mazes this go around) feel samey, with the exception of the fifth maze. It has a trio of u-bends that feels similar to Pac-Man and probably offered the most challenge, except the ghosts missed tons of chances to trap me. They’re just not that smart. While challenging for high scores on single mazes is still addictive thanks to the one-life system from the original game carrying over, I wish the game could shuffle between mazes. I also think the ghosts are stun-locked too long when you chomp them and I think the power pellets last too long. But, that “just one more game” addictiveness is still there and the whole experience is just damn charming.

I could have died here if the pink ghost had entered the u-bend. Instead, it went up. (shrug)

K. C.’s Krazy Chase is krazy fun, but the more I played it, the more I realized it wasn’t going to enter my rotation of classic games that I throw on when I have ten minutes to kill. It’s just short of that. Instead, I’m aching for a remake that features more intelligent enemies, bigger mazes, probably more than one caterpillar (and the ability for them to get longer, maybe by eating the trees) and more nuanced scoring. Like the original game, age makes the limitations stand out so much more. But, because this tries to be much more original, the limitations stand out more. The compromises that had to be made give Krazy Chase an undeniable “proof of concept” vibe that hurts my heart because nobody ever really got a chance to build upon it. If there were any justice in the world, THIS would have been the start of a major gaming franchise. Despite that, while I probably won’t be reviewing a ton of Odyssey 2 games at IGC, I’m happy I gave the K. C. games a chance. They’re fun. They hold up as well as you could hope for, given the limitations and circumstances. They also break my heart. I think that’s why I wanted to do this review. There’s a formula here that feels untapped, and in this era of indie games, I’m hoping a few quality developers will see this review and their wheels will start spinning.
Verdict: YES!