Below the Cut: Spud's Adventure (Game Boy)

(Source: Defunct Games)

Spud's Adventure - Rating(6 RPP)
1) 4 - Character Advancement: practice/experience based advancement, stat or level increases, multiple classes or characters, customize characters
2) 0 - Combat: character stats used for combat, additional combat options, turn based
3) 0 - Items and Equipment: store to buy and sell, equipment decisions, item decisions
4) 1 - Story: main story at the forefront; world full of hints and lore; descriptions for objects, people, and places
5) 0 - Exploration: open world from the beginning, visited locations remain open
6) 1 - Quests and Puzzles: side quests not related to the main quest, puzzles and riddles to solve

How does this game get added to an RPG list? This is absurd; nearly as bad as Pinball Quest. The only reason I can think this would be in the list (came from Wikipedia) is that there are NPCs and dialogue. Also, I suppose it does have experience points and levels that offer health increases. Beyond that it's a poor man's Adventure of Lolo. The game is a set of floors, which are often maze-like, sometimes have puzzles, and offer a choice of stairs to take.

The game comes from the creators of Kwirk and Amazing Tater, and I suppose they were trying to expand on their genre of push puzzles. A princess is kidnapped, and you're the last in a line of heroes that have attempted to rescue her. As you make your way through the tower, you'll find the previous rescuers and they'll join your party, offering different weapons. All weapons shoot out from you, but some have a wider range, do more damage, or have different patterns (one is a banana boomerang I believe). After a certain number of floors a boss will appear, defeat him to move on to the next area.

There aren't any other quests, there isn't an inventory, and there's a lack of rewards for combat. There's little use to fighting after reaching max health. The endless monsters get really annoying after the first floor. On at least one floor, there was the option to fight one of two bosses depending on the path taken through the maze. I had the chance to play through the entire game, and it only took about 5 hours (3 hours according to the game, which probably didn't take into account the game overs). I was hoping for something a little more from Atlus, which has quite the library of RPGs.