James Pond 3

Timed Sega exclusive

Unlike the first game of the series, that was a mission-based game, and the second one, where your character had unique abilities such as observing the whole level and growing to unlimited height, James Pond 3 is a standard jump and run platform game. Pond can run very quickly (by holding down the A button) through large levels, which often contain steep mountain sides and other tricky areas. Once again, he has to oppose the evil scientist Maybe and his minions.

Released: 1993
Platforms: Amiga Amiga 1200 Amiga CD32 Commodore 64 Game Gear SNES Sega Genesis
Genres: Arcade Platformer Science
Developers: Vectordean Millennium Interactive
Publishers: Electronic Arts
Series: James Pond
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Side view
Themes: Action Science fiction Comedy
Country: United Kingdom
Languages: English
Composers: Richard Joseph

About

James Pond 3: Operation Starfish (stylized as Operation Starfi5h, after the fictional secret service F.I.5.H) is a 1993 video game for Mega Drive, Amiga and Amiga CD32, Super NES and Game Gear. It is the third and last game in the James Pond series. It is also the only one that was only released for AGA Amigas: the Amiga 1200, Amiga 4000 and CD32.

The game's working title was James Pond 3: Splash Gordon, a play on Flash Gordon. Although it enjoyed good sales, it was not as well received as other games in the series.

Keywords

super speed

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The gameplay in Operation Starfish is similar to Super Mario World. The map of the Moon consists of many levels connected with pathways. The levels are grouped into sections themed after dairy products including cheese, custard, ice cream and more, with each section culminating in a boss fight. Many stage names are a play on words, such as "The Garden of Edam" for the first level (named after the Garden of Eden).

A unique twist to the standard "Super Mario"-style gameplay is that Pond's magno-boots allow him to run up walls. Once on a ceiling, James Pond will only fall down if he jumps off, and some levels have sections which the player must navigate in this upside-down fashion. Although Pond can no longer stretch his body upwards as he could in the preceding game, many levels give the player gadgets that allow James Pond to travel a great distance upwards.

Story

Following his defeat in RoboCod, the evil Dr. Maybe learns of the high quality cheese that lies on the Moon. Hiring a workforce of rats, Dr. Maybe begins mining the moon for cheese so he can conquer the global markets and fund his operations.

In order to stop Dr. Maybe, James Pond, along with his new sidekick, Finnius Frog, journey to the Moon in order to put a stop to Dr. Maybe's mining operations.

Reception

Amiga reviews were mixed. Reviews praised the number and scale of the levels, but some expressed disappointment with black background and "fiddly" gameplay.

In 1995, Total! ranked the game 99th on its Top 100 SNES Games writing: "This smooth platformer is big and challenging. The fluid gameplay gets repetitive after a bit though."

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

Platform	Released	Regions
Sega Genesis	31 December 1993	North America · Brazil 31 December 1994
Amiga	31 December 1994	Europe
Amiga CD32	31 December 1994	Europe
SNES	31 December 1994	Europe