Prepare yourself to get hooked
Hook is a 1992 platform game released by Ocean Software on Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy, released just one year after the Steven Spielberg film, with subsequent versions also being released by Sony Imagesoft for the SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, and Game Gear. The game received praise for the large levels, the graphics and the various gameplay styles it features, but has also got a lot of flak about the long loading times (in the C64 version) and the rather repetitive platforming levels.
There is another game based on the movie, released in the very same year with the exact same name, but that one is a Beat 'em Up arcade action game in the style of Golden Axe and Final Fight.
Hook (NES) provides examples of the following tropes:
- Double Jump: Sort of: Touching fairy dust during a jump, rather than granting flight, acts like a springboard sending you up in a second jump which could be necessary in order to clear large chasms.
- Dynamic Loading: Used and abused in the C64 version: after loading the world map and choosing the next mission, you have to wait through a loading screen just to see a one-phrase briefing by Tinkerbell, and only then the loading of the level begins...
- Levels Take Flight: Peter flies in a few levels, shoot'em up style.
- Loads and Loads of Loading: The devastating amount of loading screens is the main source of the complaints leveled at the game. Hook is arguably the one game in the Commodore 64 library with the longest and most frequent loading screens, on a platform which is already infamous for its long, boring loading sequences.
- Non-Lethal Warfare: In the boss fight against Rufio you just deal Clothing Damage. Who loses his shirt loses the duel.
- Point-and-Click Map: Used to select the next level.
- Right-Hand Attack Dog: Once you get a fairy to follow you by giving her a thimble, you can send her to hit a pirate while you stay safely behind.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: You're bound to spend hours exploring the large, labyrinthine levels looking for the items required to move on until you memorize where they're hidden and can optimize the path to take in subsequent playthroughs.
- 20 Bear Asses: Several levels require you to find a number of items before you're allowed to proceed to the end.
- Under the Sea: A few levels take place underwater, with the objective of collecting pearls from giant oysters
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: One level is platforming, the next one could be underwater, then a 2D beat-em up style boss fight, then you get to fly...
- Walk the Plank: Your fate in the game over screen, courtesy of Captain Hook. If you continue, Tinkerbell rescues you just before you drown.
Hook (arcade) provides examples of the following tropes:
- Actionized Adaptation: The movie is a fantasy drama with a bit of action at the end of the film, which the game made up by including all the action in each and every level.
- Adaptational Badass:
- Peter, who went from a mild-mannered, mostly weak lawyer who is only strong towards the end to a badass fighter beating up scores and scores of pirates in multiple levels.
- Heck, the bumbling Smee serves as a
difficult penultimate boss fight and assists Hook with a cannon at low health.
- Anchors Away: A constant hazard when fighting on the deck of pirate ships. Beware of falling anchors! You can also use it on enemies if you cut the ropes yourself.
- Bee-Bee Gun: Peter can throw beehives at enemies during gameplay. The bees sting all the enemies around. It's possible to use an exploit and cut a huge chunk of Hook's health in the final fight if you throw a beehive while he is getting up.
- Canon Foreigner: Several of the bosses and other enemies in the game did not appear in the movie.
- Chef of Iron: The first boss is the ship's cook, who Peter must beat up after taking down all the pirates in the kitchen and larder. He'll use a carving knife and a Frying Pan of Doom to rough up Peter.
- Degraded Boss: Jason, the boss of the second stage, returns as a regular (though very strong) enemy unit for the last two stages.
- The Dog Bites Back: Butcher, the Evil Chef boss, is surrounded by chickens. Once he is defeated, the chickens gather around him and begin to peck him.
- Dual Boss: The third boss fight in the USA version, where Peter has to face two copies of Captain Hook... who turn out to be Actually a Doombot before and after the battle.
- Epic Flail: Occasionally pirate mooks will swing spiked balls on chains at Peter. Sometimes Peter can collect these as his weapon.
- Evil Chef: The first boss of the game is a pirate chef.
- Flunky Boss: Most of them, notably Smee and Captain Hook.
- Giant Mook: Overweight pirates wielding spiked knuckles, as well as the Jason boss.
- Glass Cannon: Damon, the fourth boss. He has devastating, hard to avoid magical attacks, but is also the most fragile boss in the game by far.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Drunk pirates will take a swig from their bottles before using the bottles to smash Peter's head.
- Pipe Pain: One of the Recurring Boss enemies is a huge, muscular pirate minion armed with a massive pipe, which Peter has to defeat thrice (first as the second boss, and again late in the game, and two of them before the last battle with Hook).
- Recurring Boss: Captain Hook himself. In the USA version, you face two or three (depending on the difficulty setting) weak clones of him, who have a limited arsenal of his moves, then you face him two stages later, where he has improved with the sword, then in the final stage he introduces his gun, and then you have the true final fight against him. In the Japanese version the clones are absent, but he still has enough fights to count.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Depending on the player; in the movie, Rufio was killed by Hook. This game offers players the chance to play as Rufio, which, if they win, means Rufio survives.
- Spike Balls of Doom: Jason can summon these tho throw at the player during the second half of his boss battle. Once he is defeated, he gets crushed under one himself.
- Spin Attack: Peter and Rufio can pull this special move to take down multiple pirates at once by tapping attack and jump together.
- Unwilling Suspension: In the background of the final stage, this is how the captive Maggie is being held by the pirates, hung in the air, until Peter defeats Captain Hook and saves her.
- Wolfpack Boss: The third boss in the Japanese version is a trio of powerful female pirates, while in the American version it's a duo or trio of Hook-clones.
