Dizzy Games

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Hey man, never heard of Dizzy? Dizzy was a popular videogame series for PC in Europe back in the late '80s. The gameplay is pretty unique: it's a platforming game with point-and-click elements. There are a lot of enemies that can damage you, but you can't harm them. There are items to pick up and use to solve puzzles all over a big world to explore. Developed by the Oliver Twins for Codemasters (the same who brought you the Game Genie), it was so acclaimed it generated 8 games (plus a 9 one which was just a short 3.1 version) and a few spin-offs (which were pretty different from the classic gameplay).
All those games were released for Commodore 64, Amiga and DOS (except the first one) and a few for the NES too. The third game in the series, Fantasy World Dizzy, got some popularity recently after a Zero Punctuation review when Yahtzee called it the best game ever. That's obviously arguable, but all 8 games in the series (they're not all made by the Oliver Twins, but they approved the ones they didn't develop) are really good and pretty difficult. It's not just for the hard jumping and puzzles, but you can't also take with you more than X items (the number changed over the time) and you really have just a few lives. Today the franchise is pretty much dead (though the Oliver Twins are still alive, they said they're interested about working on the series again and they approved fan-made games), but those games are still today very enjoyable. Awesome gameplay, great difficult and good music. This is not the only franchise that deserve more attention but fuck it, let's have a page for motherfucking Dizzy.
You can play all the games in the series (except the first one) with Amiga or DOS, which have better graphic and sound than the Commodore 64 versions. In case you use Windows Vista/7, you have to use DOSBOX to play the DOS version. If you want to play the Amiga version use WINUAE, an awesome Amiga emulator. In both case, you'll have to google a bit.
Title 	Year	Pic 	Description 	Consoles
Dizzy – The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure	1986	150px	First game in the series. No DOS or Amiga version, the Commodore 64 one is the best out of three. Dizzy must search the fairy tale land of Katmandu for a Leprechaun's Wig, a Cloud's Silver Lining, a Vampire Dux Feather, and a Troll Brew and deposit them in a cauldron to make a potion to defeat the evil wizard Zaks. The series wasn't really too evolved back then (for some reason Dizzy has only one creepy eye on the cover) and this is probabily the shortest game of all. Don't worry, it's already pretty hard. 	Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum.
Treasure Island Dizzy 	1987	 	The game gets better graphic, the theme song (which is pretty fucking awesome) and overall better eveything. Still inferior to the next games, yet better than the first one. This time Dizzy is on a island looking for a treasure and to defeat captain Blackheart (a character that will appear more times in the series). Dizzy looks like he's scared and on drugs at the same time. 	Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Enterprise 64/128, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, NES, CD32.
Fantasy World Dizzy 	1989	 	Overall, the third game is probabily the best one. At least it's the more balanced between puzzles and platforming, have an improved inventory and introduced most of the Yolkfolk characters. The evil wizard Zaks returns and this time he kidnapped Daisy, Dizzy's girlfriend (after this game this will always be the plot of the game, actually). Cloud castle, upside-down city, dragons and a lot of awesome fantasy-theme places to explore that will soon be rehashed to death in the next games. If you care about it, Yahtzee called it the best game ever his favourite game ever.	Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Enterprise 64/128, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS.
Dizzy 3 and a half: Into Magicland' 	1991	 	As Wikipedia says, In order to promote Magicland Dizzy, a five screen mini-adventure for the ZX Spectrum known as Into Magicland or unofficially Dizzy 3 and a half was given away with the January 1991 edition of Crash, a UK based magazine. It featured Dizzy and his cousin Danny and is a prequel to the main game, ending with Dizzy teleporting to the first screen of Magicland Dizzy. This was the character Danny's only appearance in a Dizzy game. Not really considered part of the main series, and the rom of the game has not been dumped yet. 	Commodore 64
Magicland Dizzy 	1990	150px	The Evil Wizard Zaks has returned, and this time destroying his ring is actually your main object: you rescure the yolkfolks during the way. The difficulty has been nerfed. There are a few enemies, you have a damage bar but now things like torches don't hurt you anymore and it's way shorter than the previous ones. Those things will happen to pretty much every single next game in the series. Also, it re-use a lot of ideas used in the previous games. 	Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS.
Spellbound Dizzy 	1991	 	The most difficult game in the entire series (the fucker get hurt by jumping from a higher place, this was removed from next games), also the longest and biggest. There's a new inventory with items icons, separated collection (stars) and healing (apples), hidden passages and dynamic animated set pieces (the travel tunnels, the mining cart etc) There are additional Dizzy animations and abilities, Swimming for instance (once you get the Flippers), Eating frames, Concussed frames (after falling) and so on. Most of those features will later re-appear in Fantastic Dizzy. 	Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, CD32.
Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk 	1991	150px	Shortest game in the entire series, but it also have arguably the best graphic and music. A lot of famous characters (the Grim Reaper, St. Peter...), the difficulty is nerfed again and this time don't expect enemies at all. Also, there are no really difficult jumping parts this time. 	Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Amiga, DOS, NES, CD32.
Fantastic Dizzy 	1991	 	The game imports a lot of features from Spellbound Dizzy, but with a more balanced difficulty. Too bad that, to defeat Zacks, you have to collect a shitload of stars (100 or 250, depends on the version) so the platforming is very important. Also, enemies everywhere. The NES version is MIND-BLOWING for a nes game. A 3D-looking intro followed by a detailed tutorial showing the controller on my NES!? 	NES, PC, Master System, Mega Drive, Amiga, Game Gear, CD32.
Crystal Kingdom Dizzy 	1992	 	Last game in the series, Dizzy ends with a good game like usual. The whip is here again but there's the old inventory system. Stars and enemies are here again, but this time the game is chapter-based. The only problem is that the previous games had a lot of places and cool stuff in little places, while this game have HUGE places with fucking nothing, making it looks like a platforming-only game sometimes. Also, unispired graphic... but still worth to check it out. 	Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, CD32.
== Spin offs ==
1987
*Fast Food (pac-man with Dizzy)
1990
*Kwik Snax (good maze game, at least for his time)
*Dizzy Panic! (boring puzzle game with Dizzy's girlfriend yawning on the screen)
*Bubble Dizzy (puzzle/platforming, good graphic and music)
1991
*Dizzy Down the Rapids (boring shit, it became a minigame in later Dizzy's main games)
1993
*Go! Dizzy Go! (pretty much Kwik Snax's sequel, but awesome music)
== Compilations ==
There are three compilations of Dizzy games that came out in '92,'93 and '94. Nothing new, just main titles and spin-off together. Too bad there isn't a complete collection.
1992
-Dizzy's Excellent Adventures
*Kwik Snax
*Dizzy Panic
*Dizzy Down The Rapids
*Dizzy: Prince Of The Yolkfolk
*Spellbound Dizzy
1993
-The Excellent Dizzy Collection
*Go! Dizzy Go! (Previously unreleased)
*Dizzy the Adventurer (A renamed conversion of Dizzy: Prince Of The Yolkfolk)
*Panic Dizzy (A renamed conversion of Dizzy Panic)
1994
-The Big 6
*Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk
*Crystal Kingdom Dizzy
*Fantastic Dizzy (in an enhanced AGA version)
*Treasure Island Dizzy
*Spellbound Dizzy
*Magicland Dizzy
== Wibble World Giddy ==
Wibble World Giddy is a Dizzy spoof. A good one, actually, so it's worth to check it out. There are also two sequels.
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Category:PC Games
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