Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first few minutes of Mort the Chicken are easy to like because the game commits completely to its nonsense. You play a chicken descending through a well to rescue kidnapped chicks from cube-shaped creatures, then begin poking around each stage for the little birds. Mort can peck enemies and swing his comb as a weapon, which gives the action a satisfyingly direct, scrappy feel. It is not graceful heroics; it is a chicken trying to clear a path through hostile blocks, and that fits the tone.

The central rescue loop is where the game finds both its focus and its limitation. Finding chicks is only half the job: you need to bring them back to the well at the start of the stage. That return trip adds tension, since enemies can knock health off Mort before he gets home. Corn and beans scattered around the ground restore that health, so exploring is tied to survival rather than being a purely optional hunt for points.

Eggs add welcome bursts of variety. Cracking one open can yield springs, invincibility, or the wonderfully absurd ability to launch baby chickens at enemies. Those rewards make it worth checking what is around you, while stars and coins cater to score chasers. Still, the stage-by-stage rhythm remains fairly narrow: search, deal with enemies, recover chicks, return to the well. If that task clicks for you, Mort’s strange arsenal keeps it moving; if it does not, repetition can set in quickly.

Graphics

Mort is a chicken hero facing block-shaped enemies in farm areas and the world beneath a well, a combination that gives the game a deliberately goofy look. The cube creatures are a clear match for the premise, and the behind-the-character viewpoint keeps the rescue action centered on Mort as he moves through each stage.

Story

This is a rescue story built around a gag, and the gag is a good one. Parallel-universe cube life forms see ordinary hay bales and conclude that their own kind has been captured. Colonel Cubicles responds by demanding their release, then the cube creatures kidnap the farm’s baby chicks when the chickens fail to comply. It is knowingly ridiculous rather than dramatic, which is exactly the right call for a game about an armed chicken.

Mort has a simple, useful motivation: go down the well and bring the chicks back. The story does not need more than that to give each stage a purpose. You are not merely collecting objects because a level says so; you are retrieving the chicks and returning them to safety, which makes the game’s backtracking objective feel more grounded than a generic scavenger hunt.

Between stages, Chicken Little and Henny Penny deliver news-style updates on the current situation. Their commentary is a smart fit for the cartoon premise and breaks up the action with reminders that the whole crisis is being treated as a bizarre poultry-world emergency. It is lightweight storytelling, but it knows its job: keep the joke alive and push Mort onward.

Overall Experience

Mort the Chicken is the sort of game you remember because somebody approved its premise, not because its rescue-platform structure continually surprises you. The first hour has a real pull: Mort’s weapons are funny, the cube invasion is memorable, and every egg holds the possibility of a useful or ludicrous power-up. There is honest charm in how seriously the game treats such a silly conflict.

Its weaker side is that the core objective does not grow beyond its basic search-and-return pattern. Taking damage while carrying out a rescue can make a stage feel more pressured, and health pickups give you a reason to sweep the area, but neither changes what you are mostly doing. The game has enough tools to make individual encounters lively without fully escaping the sameness of its larger routine.

Give it a chance if you have a soft spot for strange PlayStation mascot platformers and can enjoy a game on the strength of its offbeat theme alone. Mort’s world is funny enough to earn a look, and launching baby chickens at cube enemies is a strong argument in its favor. Just go in for a short, peculiar rescue adventure rather than expecting a platforming classic with deep staying power.

Retro Replay Score

5.2/10