Let's Play: Scooby Doo! Mystery Mayhem (Longplay)

Coming back to this game nearly 15 years from now, I had mixed to positive feelings remembering it. This game is a burst of nostalgia, and builds upon Night of 100 Frights beautifully, I wish I had done that game first at times. This somewhat early GC/XB/PS2 game does have issues that I'll point out right away, so my giddiness can be built up to. Some portions of this game have not aged that well. The vehicle levels are downright awful. Really confusing pathways (Mainly a level 3 issue) and bullshit obstacles that you almost never see in time take out all the fun in this gameplay style that was to be had. Sometimes its not even fair, as its a fork in the road, and while one path is correct, one leads to a dead end.Something as ludicrous as this should never dictate my success in a game. Stubbing your minecart wheel on the smallest block of wood and sending you back to the beginning of the section is bleh design. The ghost catching feels off as well. Constantly having to fill the Tome of Doom with spectral energy feels slow and tedious, it just feels awkward when you're wrangling a monster and yonk, no more energy! The Poltergust 3000 in a far better game that was released little over 2 years ago at the time didn't randomly run out of energy. Your progress wasn't completely stopped in that game just because the Poltergust's battery died or some other boring momentum halter of similar caliber. Which brings me to my main criticism of this game, that which it's literally just Luigi's Mansion, just with Scooby Doo. Not that there's anything wrong with that, except for this game despite coming out later looks and feels vastly inferior by comparison. But there's still fun to be had. There's only 5 levels to this quaint game, but there's lots to explore in each level, leaving a lot of replay value, with a lot to find. If you're a fan of Scooby Doo, by all means. If you're a gamer, by all means. If you love Luigi's Mansion, well, play this game first so it doesn't feel so underwhelming. Looking back, there hasn't been many Scooby Doo video games in a while, which is a little disheartening. This game has Scooby Doo nostalgia written all over it. The way they recreated the original 1969 opening and remastered it into this game with Mystery Mayhem centric backdrops like how they did with NO100F was awesome. Even the added canned laughter helped make this game feel cartoon reminiscent. Except fuck the canned laughter during the vehicle segments. My inevitable failure to overcome your bullshit level design isn't funny game. But I digress, as pissed off as I may seem, I really do enjoy this nostalgic game, and while it does seem to pale in comparison to Luigi's Mansion and co, there really is fun to be had with this one.