Sphinx and The Cursed Mummy is an original 3rd person action-adventure inspired by the mythology of ancient Egypt. Travelling the world via magical portals to foil the evil plans of Set. Sphinx's Journey will require all his wits, agility, and special powers. He will also rely on his reluctant hero friend, The Mummy, to help when being inconspicuous is the only solution. By finding the stolen magical crowns of Egypt, Sphinx can stop Set and save the world.
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This is one of the most underrated games on the PS2. I remember playing it as a kid and only got the chance to replay it now because I stumbled upon it while searching for another game. I wish it were more popular.
One of the games we got with the family GameCube, Christmas of 2004. Each family member got one game each; this was my mother's, owing to her fondness of the 1999 Mummy remake. To this day, mentioning the words "Canopic Jar", "Hamunaptra", or "Anck-su-namun" makes her (and my sister, and honestly me) want to rewatch it.
I don't think my mother ever played it, but my sister and I sure did. It took me years and years to actually get particularly far in - I remember struggling to do much around the Great Wall - but I didn't really care. I have a lot of fond memories of the first third or so, particularly watching my sister try grinding out that one obstacle course in Heliopolis while belting out "Façade" from Jekyll & Hyde (this being deep in my sister's middle/high school musical theater career).
Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy is, for the most part, a 3D Zelda clone. Having this, Star Fox Adventures, and Chamber of Secrets all in rapid succession as formative GameCube titles lead me to believe that "Zelda clone" was more of a genre than it actually was; regardless, Sphinx is calmly the most confident of these. The game is actually pretty rough and uneven - in retrospect, it always throws me that the first boss fight doesn't happen until halfway in, and waaaay too much of the game world looks samey. But the team at Eurocom did SUCH a great job with presentation that the player never really notices it until the sudden ending and is forced to reflect. Before that, the game is a great time, managing to find a happy cadence to combat that surprisingly doesn't require Z-targeting and effortlessly implementing a better version of the Pictograph challenge in the Capture Beetles.
The real draw for me though are the Cursed Mummy segments. Every now and again, the player finds a Canopic Jar (...darn it!), and they're able to be the Mummy. I love being the Mummy! If the rest of the game is a good Zelda clone, the Mummy segments are straight up 3D Wario Land: slow, puzzle-centric platforming segments where the hero can't die (he's already dead, see), but he DOES have to get the snot beaten out of him to clear puzzle rooms. These segments really show off the character animations at their finest - I love all the little details to watching how the Mummy animates, from him trying to pat down the flames as the Fire Mummy, to how he jerks around when charged with electricity, to that simple but effective trick of flattening the model along the X-axis when he gets squashed but retaining all the same animations. That little self-satisfied "Heyyyyyy!" and thumbs-up he flashes at the camera when he gets a thing, followed by that confident strut away, always gets a big smile out of me. Rock on, ya gangly nerd, you.
Bears mention: I love Bas-ket. The game needs a way to connect Sphinx's exploits with the Cursed Mummy's, and it does so by having the wise mentor Imhotep (confusing name when your main throughline into Egyptology was the '99 Universal movie) animate a wicker basket by giving it googly eyes and feet, then teleporting it into the heart of the bad guy fortress. You gotta love how the game arbitrarily makes the word "basket" sound vaguely Egyptian by throwing a dash in the middle so a player pronounces it like "Bastet".
Ah, yeah - obviously, this isn't even a stone's throw from historical accuracy for Ancient Egypt, but then that's clearly not what they're going for. I mean, this take on Ancient Egypt has friggin' Minotaurs, Sand Worms, and Armadillos running around. This is about as accurate to Egyptian mythology as Kid Icarus is to Greek mythology. Don't worry about it, mate.
I have two main complaints, plus a note. Starting with the last of these - while the game is quite well put-together, it is not immune to glitches. Supposedly there are potential game-breaking bugs involving saving at the wrong place in the Castle of Uruk as the Mummy. I never ran into 'em myself, since the walkthrough I followed as a kid warned me against it (thank you, YuGiOhFm2002 & YuGiOhAngel). But it's worth note.
Complaint #1: Sphinx is an absolute nothing character. Dude is literally just the cool design. And it is a cool design! But any given Link has more going on than Sphinx otherwise. A lot of the crew are el generico, but you at least have fun animation or voice acting; not so with Sphinx.
Complaint #2: the game just friggin' ends. Eurocom must've ran out of money and had to steer into the skid with a quick, cheap and easy sequel hook to make up for the fact that they could not add more of an endgame or closing cutscene. I suspect that there's a good deal they weren't able to do (like I said - wonky pacing, samey assets), but the ending's the only place it becomes an actual issue.
...still, it should speak to the game's quality that I'd love to see a sequel some day. And not out of some "I'm owed one" place like the Star Fox Adventures fans who pulled for General Scales in Smash purely because "we're owed a fight". Game's good! Would love to do more of this with these characters some other time.
I don't think my mother ever played it, but my sister and I sure did. It took me years and years to actually get particularly far in - I remember struggling to do much around the Great Wall - but I didn't really care. I have a lot of fond memories of the first third or so, particularly watching my sister try grinding out that one obstacle course in Heliopolis while belting out "Façade" from Jekyll & Hyde (this being deep in my sister's middle/high school musical theater career).
Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy is, for the most part, a 3D Zelda clone. Having this, Star Fox Adventures, and Chamber of Secrets all in rapid succession as formative GameCube titles lead me to believe that "Zelda clone" was more of a genre than it actually was; regardless, Sphinx is calmly the most confident of these. The game is actually pretty rough and uneven - in retrospect, it always throws me that the first boss fight doesn't happen until halfway in, and waaaay too much of the game world looks samey. But the team at Eurocom did SUCH a great job with presentation that the player never really notices it until the sudden ending and is forced to reflect. Before that, the game is a great time, managing to find a happy cadence to combat that surprisingly doesn't require Z-targeting and effortlessly implementing a better version of the Pictograph challenge in the Capture Beetles.
The real draw for me though are the Cursed Mummy segments. Every now and again, the player finds a Canopic Jar (...darn it!), and they're able to be the Mummy. I love being the Mummy! If the rest of the game is a good Zelda clone, the Mummy segments are straight up 3D Wario Land: slow, puzzle-centric platforming segments where the hero can't die (he's already dead, see), but he DOES have to get the snot beaten out of him to clear puzzle rooms. These segments really show off the character animations at their finest - I love all the little details to watching how the Mummy animates, from him trying to pat down the flames as the Fire Mummy, to how he jerks around when charged with electricity, to that simple but effective trick of flattening the model along the X-axis when he gets squashed but retaining all the same animations. That little self-satisfied "Heyyyyyy!" and thumbs-up he flashes at the camera when he gets a thing, followed by that confident strut away, always gets a big smile out of me. Rock on, ya gangly nerd, you.
Bears mention: I love Bas-ket. The game needs a way to connect Sphinx's exploits with the Cursed Mummy's, and it does so by having the wise mentor Imhotep (confusing name when your main throughline into Egyptology was the '99 Universal movie) animate a wicker basket by giving it googly eyes and feet, then teleporting it into the heart of the bad guy fortress. You gotta love how the game arbitrarily makes the word "basket" sound vaguely Egyptian by throwing a dash in the middle so a player pronounces it like "Bastet".
Ah, yeah - obviously, this isn't even a stone's throw from historical accuracy for Ancient Egypt, but then that's clearly not what they're going for. I mean, this take on Ancient Egypt has friggin' Minotaurs, Sand Worms, and Armadillos running around. This is about as accurate to Egyptian mythology as Kid Icarus is to Greek mythology. Don't worry about it, mate.
I have two main complaints, plus a note. Starting with the last of these - while the game is quite well put-together, it is not immune to glitches. Supposedly there are potential game-breaking bugs involving saving at the wrong place in the Castle of Uruk as the Mummy. I never ran into 'em myself, since the walkthrough I followed as a kid warned me against it (thank you, YuGiOhFm2002 & YuGiOhAngel). But it's worth note.
Complaint #1: Sphinx is an absolute nothing character. Dude is literally just the cool design. And it is a cool design! But any given Link has more going on than Sphinx otherwise. A lot of the crew are el generico, but you at least have fun animation or voice acting; not so with Sphinx.
Complaint #2: the game just friggin' ends. Eurocom must've ran out of money and had to steer into the skid with a quick, cheap and easy sequel hook to make up for the fact that they could not add more of an endgame or closing cutscene. I suspect that there's a good deal they weren't able to do (like I said - wonky pacing, samey assets), but the ending's the only place it becomes an actual issue.
...still, it should speak to the game's quality that I'd love to see a sequel some day. And not out of some "I'm owed one" place like the Star Fox Adventures fans who pulled for General Scales in Smash purely because "we're owed a fight". Game's good! Would love to do more of this with these characters some other time.
This is one of my favourite games from when I was a child. I had this for the PS2 and played it all the time. It's an adventure game with a nice story, a bit of combat, and a lot of jumping/climbing. Love the switching back and forth between the two main characters, love the story and how it draws from real world Ancient Egyptian mythology, and honestly for a early 2000s game the graphics are nice. Now as an adult I've re-purchased this game on steam and it's still as great as I remember it, still slightly unforgiving but fun. Seems to only work using a controller plugged in to my PC though, not a deal breaker.
A sort of underrated gem imo. I never played this growing up but after watching a NitroRad review on it I decided to pick it up and give it a whirl. I was genuinely impressed with how ahead of it's time this felt. A large sprawling open area to explore and get lost in felt very impressive.
The REAL gem here are the mummy puzzle section though. THE SOUNDTRACK during these areas goes so hard, it's so fun, bouncy, and just great.
The ending was a little abrupt and felt underwhelming but generally this was a very impressive venture backwards. I'm glad I visited it.
The REAL gem here are the mummy puzzle section though. THE SOUNDTRACK during these areas goes so hard, it's so fun, bouncy, and just great.
The ending was a little abrupt and felt underwhelming but generally this was a very impressive venture backwards. I'm glad I visited it.
i played the hell out of this game. like, hours and hours in a day - then i reached a game breaking bug known only in the gamecube version when using a specific save point. as if i didn't have enough trust issues with game saves
I'm shocked! This is actually pretty neat!