We already know this, but I will say it anyway because the world keeps forgetting: Zool: Ninja of the “Nth” Dimension on Super Nintendo is what happens when Sonic the Hedgehog drinks three cans of Surge, slams into a piñata factory, and decides the shattered candy shards are adequate camouflage. Bizarre premise? Absolutely. Underrated? More than a stealth stat on a 3.5e monk. Fundamental? If you squint at the early-nineties mascot arms race, yes, because Zool is the hyperactive midpoint between Amiga demo-scene swagger and the console platformer gold rush. Why does a gremlin ninja from a vaguely algebraic dimension sprint through sweet worlds plastered with Chupa Chups logos (except in North America, more on that later), double-jump like gravity owes him lunch money, then pogo off bees made of gelatin? Why did rental shelves hype this cart as a Sonic killer even though everybody’s kid brother still called him “that liquorice ant”? Why is my desk peppered with half-sucked lollipops that cheer me on like an in-house commentary team? (Don’t play coy, the lollies have caught you narrating your combo meter too.) Grab a sugar-coated sidekick single-stick – I have christened mine Chupa Charlie, a lime lollipop with a cracked shell and a lot of opinions – and let us dive headfirst into one of the strangest, sweetest, and fastest cartridges ever strapped into a Super Nintendo.
Historical Context
Sonic 2 had convinced half the fourth-grade population to draw fan art in the margins of long-division homework. Gremlin Graphics wanted in, and the Amiga community craved a hometown hero that could outrun Sega’s blue rodent on horizontal parallax alone. Enter Zool, coded by George Allan in a Nottingham office lined with rave flyers and CRTs desperate for degaussing. The Amiga original arrived first, ferociously fast, bundled with advertisements that bragged about “arcade-style speed” and a soundtrack ready to DJ a warehouse party. It also came packed with Chupa Chups product placement so blatant you half expected a dental disclaimer at boot. Salvador Dalí designed that lollipop logo and now it was smeared on every platform tile, which might be the most surreal cross-media cameo since Mario taught typing.
When the Super Nintendo port shipped in early 1994 under GameTek in the United States and Electronic Arts in Europe, the hype machine insisted Zool could be the console’s answer to Sonic. Magazine previews ran side-by-side speed bar graphs, though none explained how a 3:2 aspect ratio and the SNES 256-pixel width would strain frame pacing. Spoiler: it does, but we will get to that. European and Japanese carts kept the Chupa logos; the American build scrubbed them out, presumably because licensing a Spanish lollipop was harder than convincing kids to crave sweets they could not chew.
I first met Zool on a rental shelf wedged between Bubsy and Cool Spot – mascot purgatory incarnate. The box promised seven worlds and “ninja moves!” I pictured stealth and shuriken. Reality slapped me with a sugar rush more aggressive than mixing Pixy Stix into Mountain Dew. My buddy and I bet a week’s allowance on who could finish Sweet World without losing a life. We both failed, but the lollipop-wrapper souvenirs became fridge magnets that survive to this day. Chupa Charlie claims he can still taste the defeat.
Mechanics
Boot the SNES cartridge and the title screen practically begs you to break speed limits. Zool materializes, kicks into a ready pose, and a menu chimes like a Casio keyboard possessed by club DJs. Press Start and you are dropped into Sweet World 1-1, a sideways kaleidoscope where liquorice cane columns line chocolate rivers and jelly babies patrol like sugar-coated Goombas. Zool runs, slides, shoots rapid-fire projectiles from his fingertips (they look like shuriken but feel like Nerds pellets), and triple-spins vertically whenever you hold Jump. He can cling to walls as if Super Glue replaced friction, then leap away in a physics-defying parabolic burst. The wall-cling, exclusive to consoles and absent from the original Amiga code, turns vertical shafts into expanded mini-mazes and rewards Sonic-inspired route memorization.
Every level hides a strict item quota: collect enough doodads and an EXIT sign materializes. Ignore the quota and the finish line ghost-sneers at you, forcing frantic back-tracking while timer digits bleed. It is the gamified version of forgetting eggs and doubling back mid-grocery run, except bees are shooting honeycomb bullets at your skull. Critics at the time called the quota padding, but I call it nutrition facts because it reminds you that candy-coated speedsters still need balanced diets of collectibles.
Controls? Responsive enough to outrun slowdown on original hardware, but the SNES port does exhibit a slight input latency in large sprite clusters, especially the vertically scrolling confection rivers. Compare it to Super Mario World buttery jumps and you feel Zool’s slipperiness. Yet slam the run button and the momentum curve sings; you chain spin-jumps off gumdrops into wall slides, then ping across bounce pads like a billiard ball inside a pinball table. It is kinetic poetry, albeit a stanza too twitchy for players raised on Mario’s measured footwork.
Chupa Charlie pops up whenever I snag a red-and-white power-up that gifts Zool a temporary twin shot attack. Two shuriken streams angle outward and tear through gelatin beetles with giddy overkill. “More sugar for the sugar god,” Charlie squeals. I humor the lollipop; the sugar god demands sacrifices and my combo counter is a willing acolyte.
Let us talk boss fights. Each world ends with an oversized embodiment of its theme. Sweet World’s finale is a bouncing birthday cake that vomits candles. Music World’s is an anthropomorphic metronome that hurls cymbal discs. Tool World features a jackhammer golem whose arena floor fractures with every stomp. The SNES build even upgrades several boss sprites relative to its Amiga cousin.
Difficulty spikes mid-game. Fruit World introduces slippery melon slices and coconut grenades. Toy World spins you through rotating drum platforms that drop into nothingness if you hover too long. The last two lands, Fairground and Desert Island, weaponize verticality and cheap respawns. Enemy projectiles emerge milliseconds after you climb ledges, a design quirk that feels less like malicious coding and more like a dev timeline that favored speed over QA passes. As a teenager I inventively abused the SNES Stage Select code – Down, L, R, Down, L, Up, Down, Up, R, Up, R, then Up plus A plus B on the options screen, hold R at “Get Ready,” warp to any level. Sometimes I used it for practice; sometimes I skipped straight to Desert Island 3, determined to conquer the spiraling shark-infested reef without warps. The code is the cartridge equivalent of a backstage pass and the sweetest bribe when convincing friends to join “Zool Club” on pizza night.
Mini-rant time. Modern gamers complain if a platformer hides essential collectibles behind breakable walls, yet Zool did it unapologetically thirty years ago. Worse, walls offer zero visual tells. You want that last jelly baby for the exit quota? Slam every suspect surface with shuriken and hope. Is that design cruelty or bold exploration incentive? Answer: yes, simultaneously. Chupa Charlie shrugs; he likes mystery cavities.
Pop-culture comparison moment. Zool runs like Sonic, shoots like Contra on a sugar high, and finishes levels by signing an invisible quota spreadsheet like corporate Mario. His spin attack grants invincibility frames that rival the aforementioned 3.5e monk, although the animation is so stroboscopic it risks summoning the Pokémon anime seizure police. Yet when the move slices through a swarm of liquorice bats, the dopamine flood justifies every dropped frame.
Legacy and Influence
So why is Zool absent from today’s “Top 20 SNES Platformers” videos? Partly timing. By 1994 North American gamers were drooling over Donkey Kong Country’s Silicon Graphics veneer while Zool’s pixel art felt very 1992. Reviewers docked points for slippery handling and chaotic backgrounds, a polite way of saying “our eyeballs cannot keep up.” Marketing mis-fires did not help. GameTek’s US box bragged about nin-jastique action, but removing the Chupa Chups logos trimmed the candy world’s novelty. Without product scribbles, Sweet World looked like generic dessert décor rather than snack-aisle guerrilla marketing. Euro magazines still adored the Amiga version, awarding high nineties, yet the SNES port landed in the high seventies. Respectable, but not Mascot Hall of Fame territory.
Gremlin doubled down with Zool 2 on Amiga and Jaguar, but Nintendo owners never saw that sequel. By the time the brand might have returned, the PlayStation clocked in and flattened two-dimensional mascot budgets. Zool retreated to cameo status: a Game Boy down-port few remember, a DOS compile you probably pirated off a magazine cover CD, and a 2021 indie remaster Zool Redimensioned that removes Chupa logos for legal reasons but preserves the SNES enemy placement patterns. If you boot that remaster, toggle Classic mode and the physics feel closer to the SNES than to the Amiga. History loops, just with higher refresh rates.
What influence lingers? Speedrunners study Zool for route-breaking tech. His wall-cling plus long-jump cancels share lineage with Mega Man X dash-jump exploits. Indie devs designing quirky sugar worlds inevitably cite Zool’s Sweet World as ancestral sugar daddy. Patrick Phelan’s soundtrack paved the way for late 16-bit Euro-house chiptunes, and you can hear echoes of his sampled breakbeats in modern retro throwbacks such as Horizon Chase Turbo.
Academic trivia: Two British children’s novels, Cool Zool and Zool Rules, extended the character’s lore, implying the Nth Dimension exists in a quantum bubble shaped like a treble clef. That tidbit never surfaces in the games, but I keep it ready to ambush trivia nights.
Rumor corner: Some collectors swear a Blockbuster kiosk build of the SNES cart displayed a Gremlin logo splash screen with hidden “credit muncher” debug text. Nobody has dumped the ROM, but a grainy handheld photo circulates on forums. Until proven, chalk it with the Loch Ness Monster and my claim that Chupa Charlie gained sentience in 1994. Sometimes the myth is spicier than the evidence.
Closing Paragraph + Score
Zool is not Sonic’s killer, nor Mario’s usurper. He is the sugar-fuelled cousin who shows up at family reunions riding a pogo stick, scattering jelly beans, and signing autographs on lollipop wrappers. The SNES port, with its cleaned-up sprites, lively soundtrack, and treacherous item quotas, remains a fierce time capsule of Euro-platformer bravado. Yes, the screen scrolls so fast it occasionally outruns its own cohesion. Yes, the lollipop logos vanish in the US version leaving some backgrounds oddly vacant. Yes, the exit quotas will steamroll your patience like a jackhammer golem. Yet overcome the sugar smog and you find crisp controls, secret passages, and boss fights that smack like caffeinated piñatas. Chupa Charlie licks himself triumphantly at that mental image.
Final punchline: if someone ever tells you there were no good third-party mascots on Super Nintendo, ask them how many Chupa Chups they collected this week. When they stare blankly, hand them Zool and a dental bill.
Score: 7.5 / 10. A turbo-charged sugar rush that overshot superstardom but still delivers a flavor punch hard enough to crack a jawbreaker. Grab a lollipop, wall-jump into the Sweet World, and remember that ninjas come in neon too.