Recently, I asked my nan if she had an old CRT lying around (she has everything stored in her loft these days). Granted, she was a bit confused why a 24-year-old with a flatscreen would want an old tube TV, but she obliged and brought one over, kicking my PS2 obsession back into gear. I scurried over to second-hand markets and bargain bins almost immediately, grabbing everything I could get my hands on, including a nugget of nostalgia I haven’t thought about in years — Scooby-Doo: Night of 100 Frights.
It’s styled on the old ‘60s cartoon, complete with a charmingly low-poly recreation of its iconic intro. You play as the titular Scooby-Doo, an ordinarily frightened dog with the munchies who runs away from trouble, but in this case, double-jumps on its head to squash it like a goomba. There’s a creepy mansion filled with monsters from across the show’s history, and all your pals have been kidnapped — except Shaggy, who shows up every now and then to lend a hand.
Read: haunted tractor ride.
I vividly remembered it being a platformer, as it sat on my shelf alongside Haven: Call of the King, Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Sly Raccoon (not Cooper until the sequels, thank you very much), and Ratchet & Clank. A delectable assortment of bangers. But it doesn’t belong with them whatsoever. As it turns out, Night of 100 Frights is baby’s first Metroidvania.
Scooby-Dooby Doo, Where Are You? We Got Some Work To Do Now. But First, You Need Spring Boots
I was really late to Metroidvanias. The first one I played, at least played knowing it was a Metroidvania, was probably Hollow Knight in 2018. I didn’t get around to any Metroids themselves until a couple of years later, when my obsession with the genre finally took hold (thank you, quarantine). Ever since, it’s become one of my favourite types of games. There’s something so uniquely satisfying about mastering a map, only to discover entirely new paths and secrets when you return later on with a new toolset at your disposal.
But I’ve been obsessed with at least one Metroidvania since 2002. It just took me a decade and a half to realise it. The crux of Scooby-Doo: Night of 100 Frights, as I’m rediscovering, is finding an assortment of the professor’s strange inventions. Early on, if you enter the mansion, you’ll see ledges just out of reach and cobwebs you can’t break. So, you venture to the docks and find spring boots that let you double-jump, opening up a new pathway to the football helmet, which you can use to charge through obstacles like those pesky cobwebs.
The map, split into colour-coded lines, shows splintering paths that lead to new areas and secrets, with various fast travel points dotted along so that you can easily return to and explore old locations with your new gear. My memories are hazy — the game came out when I was one-year-old — but I still remember how rewarding it was to revisit the docks with my yellow wellies, now able to jump on tar and get all those Scooby Snacks I’d missed and find more monster tokens for the museum. It’s Metroidvania 101.
It’s not nearly as complex as others in the genre, being a tie-in of a children’s cartoon, but that was the charm of it! It was a Metroidvania intro for dummies (ie toddlers), and given that it’s a cult classic today, I imagine there were plenty of kids who fell head over heels with the genre thanks to Scooby’s springy boots.
I’d say go play it, but a) it’s not on anything other than PS2 and GameCube, and b) THQ shut down. But who knows? Maybe Warner Bros. will finally kick itself into gear and start making cool Scooby-Doo games again, introducing another generation of kids to Metroidvanias. I’d sooner bet on Velma finding her glasses, though.
THQ
- Date Founded
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April 3, 1990
- Parent Company
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Embracer Group
- Subsidiaries
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Big Huge Games, THQ San Diego
- Headquarters
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Agoura Hills, California, United States