Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy



A multi-platform Zelda clone released in 2004 that takes extreme liberties with both Egyptian history and mythology, rife with anachronisms, Fridge Logic, Rule of Cool taken too far, and random fantasy elements despite being ostentiably based on Egyptian history.

In other words, hell yeah this is freakin' awesome!

In actuality, Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy is a very nice little Action Adventure game made by Eurocom, and it remains perhaps their only original IP. This bodes poorly, but the actual game is remarkably fun, even if it makes absolutely no sense. The plot concerns Sphinx, a demigod in a kind of Alternate History ancient Egypt where there are Funny Animals. He's out training with his rival Horus one day when he stumbles into a plot by the evil god Set to use the mystical Castle of Uruk to do the bad-guy thing and Take Over the World. Meanwhile, Prince Tutankhamen--yep, that one--is preparing for his birthday celebration and his betrothal to his girlfriend. He gets stuffed in a sarcophagus, Strapped to An Operating Table by his older brother,, and turned into a mummy. He's Only Mostly Dead, though, and Sphinx stumbles into him and helps revive him with a canopic vase. The two then work together to help put a stop to Set's schemes to rule Egypt.

The game takes place in two parts. The majority of the game takes place as Sphinx, who does the running, jumping, and baddie-battling common to action adventure heroes. The Mummy, on the other hand, has his own separate sections that focus almost exclusively on puzzle-solving. These act as chapter breaks in Sphinx's story, and usually come after dungeons, major bosses, or other big quests.

Considered a "hidden treasure" of the past console generation, it's well worth a look. Each version should work just fine in the corresponding system of this generation.


 * Adventurer Archaeologist: Yes, he even has a pith hat. In ancient Egypt. You probably shouldn't think about it too hard.
 * Adventurer Outfit
 * Anachronism Stew: The game's manual says "It is an ancient Egypt not told in the history books". However, a lot of players just chalked it up to Fantasy Counterpart Culture.
 * Anticlimax:
 * Amusing Injuries: All of the Mummy's powers are based on inflicting some form of severe harm on him--but he's dead, so it's not like it hurts him. Although judging by his reactions maybe it does hurt him plenty. He just can't die from it.
 * Art Major Biology: Smiling Burbles, as a species, have been wearing their hats for so long that they're now born wearing them.
 * Balance Between Good and Evil: The reason for the quest.
 * Baleful Polymorph: One of the many curses inflicted on the mummy is the transformation into a small, flying Mook, and one boss can turn Sphinx into a frog. Both are necessary to solve puzzles, though.
 * Bittersweet Ending: The Big Bad is beaten but . But one of the characters says to not give up hope and that there may be another way to bring him back to life. Sadly a sequel to emphasize on this was never made.
 * Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics: The Bouncing Dart. It does Exactly What It Says on the Tin, but there's no reason why.
 * Blind Idiot Translation: Italian dub. "Cursed" was translated as "pasticciona" (clumsy) and the "Game Over" was translated as "Gioco Su". Sooo pitiful...
 * Border Patrol
 * Call a Smeerp a Rabbit: Bipedal "frogs" with scales and red crests, skull-faced, spiny "rats" and... "armadillos", "electric eels" with anglerfish-like lures... The list goes on.
 * Cartoon Creature: Some of the Funny Animal people in Heliopolis don't really resemble actual animals; they're kind of vaguely canid, but that's it.
 * The Chew Toy: Does anything good ever happen to the Mummy? Ever?
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Horus.
 * Collection Sidequest: Capturing all the monsters in the game and bringing them to the Museum.
 * Cutscene Incompetence: When the young prince . It doesn't get more idiotic or contrived. Imhotep then mentions there may still be another way. Despite not thinking to ask Anubis, Guardian of the Dead, standing not two feet away.
 * Death Ray: The Eye of Ra posts.
 * Did Not Do the Research: Weak-hearted Egyptologists should look away.
 * Doppelganger: Turns out that, revealing the ability to pose as a person requires draining the life and soul from the original..
 * Egyptian Mythology: Of course!
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: If you have even a passing knowledge of ancient Egpyt and its culture, it's much easier to accept this as simply a land loosely based on it.
 * Funny Animal: Most of them are either birds or cats. However, there are also crocodiles, aardvarks, and, in one instance, a tapir. Also dogs, maybe a jackal, and even a baboon.
 * Global Currency Exception: The decidedly paranoid shopkeeper in Heliopolis only accepts Onyx Scarabs as payment, which only the Mummy can collect. Since they can be difficult to find, and you only get a limited amount of time to play as him, some of the stuff he sells can become Lost Forever.
 * Heart Container: The Ankh Pieces.
 * Heroic Mime: Sphinx
 * Idiot Ball: When Sphinx goes to retrieve the crown from the Pharaoh's throne room, he doesn't simply lift the crown and leave. He needs to release the Pharaoh first. The fault isn't his, however, as neither Anubis nor Imhotep felt the need to tell Sphinx, so one of them was definitely carrying the ball.
 * Iron Buttmummy
 * Lethal Lava Land: The land of Uruk.
 * Lost Forever: In the NTSC version of the game, the Smiling Burble monster can easily become Lost Forever, rendering 100% Completion impossible. The PAL version fixes this bug, though.
 * Me's a Crowd: The Mummy can be split up into three separate mummies and remain unhurt. Several puzzles are based on swapping between them.
 * Mickey Mousing: The combat makes use of this everywhere. Whenever Sphinx hits an enemy a musical not is heard in conjunction with the base music. A final note is played when he delivers the final blow on an enemy as well.
 * Misplaced Wildlife: ...Chihuahuas? In Name Only, even. They more closely resemble Bull Terriers alive while the mummified versions appear to be undersized Boston Terriers, before Boston. Wrap your head around that.
 * Nitro Boost: The glowing pads in Heliopolis will temporarily increase your speed.
 * No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Sphinx lifting the curse on the Pharaoh bites him in his ass when it turns out.
 * Obviously Evil: All the birds in Abydos are lovely, except for the shifty vultures. Guess who's up to no good? And.
 * Obvious Trap: Oh, what's that?  has unforeseen dangers. Thank the gods you've arrived to stop me!
 * One-Winged Angel: Not only the Final Boss, but the flying skull demon that the boss of Abydos becomes.
 * Point of No Return: The game warns you pretty strongly that you won't be able to return after going to the final confrontation, so take care of your business beforehand.
 * Puzzle Boss
 * Ridiculously Cute Critter: To an extent, Bas-Khet.
 * Rule of Cool: The reason Ancient Egypt has a great wall, volcanoes, flaming armadillos, and giant death rays.
 * Scenery Porn: The start menu is a zoom around of the Castle of Uruk, showing every detail of the exterior. Abydos also qualifies, with the group of pyramids in the background of the city that would make the Giza Pyramids look tiny! This troper liked to linger in certain areas and just stare at the scenery.
 * Sequel Hook: The game ends with an obvious one which unfortunately, given the lack of commercial success for the game, will never happen.
 * Shifting Sand Land: It is set in Egypt. What did you expect?
 * Stock Video Game Puzzle: Played straight in some of the puzzles the Sphinx came across. Averted with the Mummy's novel methods of tackling problems.
 * The Chosen One
 * Thriving Ghost Town: Abydos is surprisingly empty; only the town hall has any real density of people.
 * Unwinnable: A nasty bug in the Castle of Uruk on your second Mummy visit can render you trapped behind a locked door forever. After the cutscene with Set, do NOT save at the save point, or you'll be trapped for good. Another rare problem encountered was when you're supposed retrieve the Abydosian Crown and give it to Anubis. Anubis wouldn't acknowledge that the crown had already been retrieved and put into the inventory, thus making further progress impossible--a rage-inducing experience since that's past the halfway point of the game.
 * Walking Shirtless Scene: Sphinx's torso only has that collar-thing.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: After his attempt to kill Sphinx with the, Horus then reports to Set... and is never seen or heard from again.