Yep, that's right, I'm back with another Sega Genesis game that's clearly aimed at a very young audience. This time, it's a game based on the children's show, Barney & Friends. As you've probably guessed by the name, Barney's Hide & Seek Game is a hidden object game of sorts, though it's presented under the guise of a 2D platformer.

The objective of the game is to find five children and five presents that have been strewn about on each of the four levels. Accomplishing this is very easy to do since the levels aren't particularly large and there are only minimal obstructions along the way. As long as you're halfway paying attention, you should be able to find everything in a very short amount of time.

The gameplay here is so simplistic, there's not much to say about it. You walk around, maybe jump here and there, and find the 10 things you're looking for. You do that across the four levels and the game is over. I was in and out of this sucker in 21 minutes and I'll never play it again.

Barney's Hide & Seek Game also offers a mode where the game plays itself, which actually seems like a really innovative idea for a game released in 1993. Obviously, the game is targeting young children and I could see how just watching the game play on the TV would be entertaining. Of course, back in 1993 we didn't have smartphones or widely accessible high-speed internet, so the options were a bit more limited.

Another interesting thing about this game is that it has a surprisingly large amount of speech in it. Having any sort of speech was relatively rare in the 8 and 16-bit era, but this game is especially chatty. The speech doesn't come across crystal clear like we're used to nowadays, but it's still a nifty addition to the game that I'm sure helped further engage younger gamers back in the day.

The game doesn't have amazing graphics or anything, but I must say they're quite colorful and they generally look pretty good for what they are. The music is peaceful and fits the overall tone of the game, but is otherwise not particularly noteworthy in my view.

Anyways, just as I mentioned in my Ecco Jr. and Crystal's Pony Tale posts, games like this are hard to properly evaluate since I'm clearly not the intended audience. While I do admit that this game has some interesting ideas for its time, it's ultimately just so simplistic that there's very little reason to play it. My rating of 2/10 is probably a little harsh since the game doesn't do anything inherently bad, but it's also a game that I can't really recommend to anyone other than those looking to pad their Sega Genesis completions.

Played On: Sega Genesis
Completion Date: 2/10/23
Time: 21 minutes
Rating: 2/10