Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
We take an extensive final look at Sonic Team's latest action platform game - will Billy Hatcher please GameCube owners?
 | Version GameCube | Developer Sonic Team | Publisher SEGA | Genre Action |
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We've been paying very close attention to Billy Hatcher since it was first unveiled earlier this year, so its arrival in final form is something we've been looking forward to. Was it worth the excitement? Let's take a look.
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg is Sonic Team's fresh twist to the platforming genre. It stars a young boy named Billy who dresses up in a chicken suit to save a once magical land from eternal darkness, brought upon it by an evil king who wants to rule with an everlasting night. The chicken elders whose voices help bring out the light of each morning were captured and sealed inside golden eggs. Without their morning cries, darkness will forever engulf the world and evil will consume the hearts of humans.
All hope is pinned on young Billy and his friends from the human world to defeat the evil crows and release the elders. Players need to learn how to use the powers of the legendary chicken suit, controlling the special eggs and using them to thwart the efforts of the evil crows and restore light to the kingdom. Got all that? It gets better.
The Real Egg Man
After viewing the very cool CG intro of Billy rolling his Egg through a gorgeously crafted CG world, we prepared to embark on a unique egg hatching adventure.
In order to get anywhere in the game you have to use the special eggs scattered all throughout the levels. Where you go, the eggs go too, and enable you to progress.
"The colorful game world is full of impressive graphical touches"
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Defeating enemies and smashing objects releases orbed fruits, eventually growing the egg into a 'giant egg' that can inflict more damage on larger foes and lets you reach certain switches and platforms - but the harder it is to control when rolling along at high speed. There's an indicator that shows how close your egg is to reaching its maximum size, at which point it will flash. Pressing the right trigger performs a rooster call, and hatches the egg.
You'll hatch out special items such as bombs and extra lives, but more importantly, the magical egg animals, who follow you around and help you. Only one animal can follow you at a time, and choosing the right one is important as they all boast different special abilities that help your missions. Some of them are the key to solving certain puzzles, and most of them can dish out a nice bit of damage onto the enemies as well.
For instance, when you encounter an object surrounded by fire, you need to hatch and use the special abilities of an animal like a Penguin, whose specialty is water. Or you can make use of a flying Lion-like creature that can launch a fiery attack and nail several enemies at once or break through certain objects encased in ice.
Sonic fans are also in for a treat as you can also hatch several special Sonic Team Eggs that will release Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Chao, all of which you can be utilized the same way you use the other magical animals for their special attributes.
Get Hatching
At the beginning of Story Mode, Billy sets off in Forest Village and first needs to locate the Legendary Chicken Suit. Until you find it, you can't interact with eggs. You can talk to the chicks (you know, as in 'baby chickens') at this stage, but they provide you with mostly useless information. Once you find the suit, it's off to the main portion of the game - rolling eggs around, nurturing them and trouncing the enemy creatures that stand in your way.
"In later levels, an extremely high level of precision required in moving your egg around."
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There's a special golden egg in the first mission of every stage, containing trapped elders. Killing off enough enemies or activating a switch will finally release the golden eggs.
The second level, Dino Mountain is where things get hot, as you make your way through a prehistoric tropical environment filled with dinosaur remains, lava, cracked surfaces, and fiery balls shooting around, making it tough to jump some areas.
The level design is quite intricate and you'll need to maintain tight control of your eggs through certain portions of the levels in order to succeed. One part of the level has you separating briefly from your egg by sending it rolling down a long rail, while you race to climb up a cliff to get to the other side in time to stop the rolling egg falling off the edge completely.
The puzzles become increasingly challenging as the enemies get more dangerous, the complexity of the levels gets more ambitious and wacky as you progress. As you might expect, the end of each level offers a challenging group of bosses, all with their own unique attack patterns.
There are a only a couple of problems. The camera can occasionally obscure your view while battling an enemy, and later levels are sometimes frustrating, with an extremely high level of precision required in moving your egg around.
The controls are pretty simple and intuitive. For example, pulling back on the analog stick during motion makes Billy perform a Sonic-style skid, so you can stop or change direction quickly. The A button controls the various jumping techniques. Pressing while airborne performs a bounce, and you can bounce continuously by tapping the button every time you go back into the air. Holding down the jump button while airborne produces an Egg Driver attack, producing a shockwave that can take out enemies when hitting the ground.
"The high visual standard is marred slightly by a couple of glithces."
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The B button allows you to speak to the other characters in the game, shoot your egg at enemies from a distance, and perform an egg dunk while in mid-air - two safer ways of attacking enemies without putting your characters at risk. The Y button allows you to use items you've collected and X activates the special abilities of the magical animals.
Another move Billy can perform often comes as a great relief - when you've screwed up a jump and missed a platform, Billy boy automatically grabs onto the side and pulls himself back up. As you can imagine, this saves a lot of frustration.
There are some cool additional modes and hidden extras in Billy Hatcher. Battle mode offers various multiplayer split screen challenges. In 'hatch' the player with the most hatched eggs wins. 'Survival' pits players against each other until they completely wipe out their opponent's lives. And in 'Time', players race against the clock to attack each other.
In the Egg Gallery you can view any of the 72 eggs that you've hatched throughout the game. It provides some brief info on each of the eggs and the special attributes of whatever animal or items that get released from them.
Best of all, you can unlock five different GBA mini-games, including NiGHTS, Chu Chu Rocket and Puyo Puyo. During some courses in the main game, you'll encounter salesman who give opportunities to race against the clock and collect coins to receive your reward. The challenges can be pretty tough, but practice makes perfect, and the mini games are fantastic.
Visually, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg is a pleasing title. The game world is colorful, vibrant and full of graphical touches such as snow, fireflies and leaves blowing through the air. The lighting is well implemented offering some decent lens flare effects in some levels.
The levels are intricate in design and feature a good balance of geometry and clean, well-textured environments. The quality of the enemy designs vary, with larger enemies and bosses sporting more detailed looks.
"Billy will automatically grab a missed platform and pull back up, saving a lot of frustration."
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In terms of presentation, the CG cut scenes really stand out, exhibiting a special quality and direction that easily surpasses previous Sonic Team efforts.
The high visual standard of Billy Hatcher is marred only slightly by a significant frame slowdown during more intense scenes, and pop-up rears its head occasionally.
The music is just what you'd expect from a crazy game full of eggs. The generic platformey music isn't really anything to shout about, but in general, a unique charm and an awesomely memorable theme tune keep the music above average. The music in Blizzard Castle offers some of the best music.
The sound effects are decent and consist of various bouncing sounds, chicken clucks, phaser effect sounds, roosters, and some occasionally cute vocals.
Overall Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg is a vibrant and original platformer that's a blast to play. With plenty of replay value and challenging courses, you'll be hatching eggs for quite some time. Don't let the look fool you, this game is no cakewalk, but fortunately the difficulty is well balanced.
"Billy Hatcher is a vibrant and original platformer that's a blast to play."
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It may not be an audiovisual tour de force, but all the elements fit well together, cooking up some highly entertaining egg adventures. Billy Hatcher is certainly a potential sleeper hit, and it will be interesting to see how the game ranks against other Sonic Team franchises in the eyes of loyal fans.
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| Video Coverage (Latest Videos & Video FAQ) | |||
| PLEASE DO NOT DIRECT LINK TO ANY MEDIA FILE ON KIKIZO | |||
| Description | Dur. | Size | Details |
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Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg Nice new footage showing Billy and chums - cool remixed music! |
2.12m | 8.66 MB | WMV |
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Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg Rendered Video Sequence |
1.29min | 10.6MB | WMV |
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Billy Hatcher & the Giant Egg Our first video shows lots of scenes from the first level. |
0.55m | 7.60 MB | WMV |
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Billy Hatcher & the Giant Egg This next video shows off more action and some level environments. |
0.55m | 7.62 MB | WMV |
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Billy Hatcher & the Giant Egg More action, this time from the Dino Mountain and Blizzard Castle levels. |
0.35m | 4.87 MB | WMV |
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Yuji Naka Video Interview The full video interview, edited and translated with game clips for good measure. |
16.34m | 21.7 MB | WMV |
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