I don’t remember the story at the beginning of Glover having any words, but I think it went something like this: there’s this wizardy guy with a pair of magic gloves. He performs some spell or other that goes awry which causes his gloves to blow off, one of them to become evil, the wizard’s six magic crystals to be blown across creation, and the wizard to be transformed into a water fountain. So it’s up to the remaining good glove to track down the crystals, defeat the evil glove, and restore the wizardy guy back to his wizardy self.
These six crystals, as it happens, are scattered throughout the six worlds connected to the wizardy guy’s wizardy tower. Inside each of the worlds is an assortment of stages and a boss fight that you have to endure to get your crystal back. The heck of it is, though, that you get the crystal on the very first stage of each world and have to take it to the goal while collecting ‘garibs’. Garibs are mysterious cards that are mysteriously floating all over the levels. Collect all the garibs and you get to fight the boss of the world. Beat all the worlds and you finish the game. Pretty predictable stuff.
Now it would be neato keen if Glover, being an ambulatory glove, could put the crystal in some kind of ‘inventory’. But it seems that he lacks pockets… or pants to put pockets on… or legs to put pants on… or… etc. So he can’t really carry the thing, but he can change its forms. He can change it into a rubber ball, a bowling ball, a little steel ball bearing, or its true crystal form (which gets you bonus points, but is very breakable). Which is fortunate because you have to use the various forms to get all of the garibs floating around all over the place.
Now, I thought it would be pretty awesome to play a game that consisted of, essentially, controlling Micky Mouse’s disembodied hand. And it was, for a couple of hours. Eventually, though, you have to jump up on top of the ball and ride it around like some kind of clown at a circus. This is fine in most cases, but when you do that in this game, your controls suddenly switch around backward. So you’re going along on your ridiculous gathering quest when all of a sudden down is up, up is down, left is right, and my controller became embedded in the wall.
Well, it would have been if my walls at the time weren’t made of plywood.