Tiny Toon Adventures

Genre: Platform

Publisher: Konami

Total time played: 4 hours

Short review: What starts off as a simple platform game in the style of Super Mario Bros. becomes one of the most frustratingly difficult games I have played to date.

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Interesting links related to Tiny Toon Adventures

• Speedrun (15 minutes and 50 seconds)
• Soundtrack
• Nintendo Legend Review
• Video Review (The 8-Bit Eric Show)

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I remember Tiny Toons being one of my favorite cartoons from my childhood although strangely when I try to remember anything about the show I draw a blank.

As soon as I hit start on the game the TV show theme started playing in all of its 8-bit glory.  In the game you play as Buster Bunny who is trying to rescue Babs who has been kidnapped (how original).  You also get to choose one of 3 secondary characters: Plucky Duck (who can slow down his falls by flapping his wings), Dizzy Devil (who can spin for a short time and kill enemies he runs into) and Furball (who can grab onto walls).  I chose Plucky 100% of the time as his ability to control his jumps by gliding was by far the most useful of all of the abilities.

During each level you run across 2 balloons; the first gives you the option to change from Buster Bunny to your secondary character (I played 90% of the game as Plucky Duck and 10% as Buster) and the second balloon contains a heart that gives you one extra hit point which is not enough but better than nothing.

Sprinkled throughout each level, like coins in Super Mario Bros., are carrots which can be exchanged for extra lives by finding the hidden door and speaking with Hampton the Pig. 30 carrots equal one extra life. I only did this a few times as the doors were usually out of my way and too much trouble for an extra life.

The goal of the game is to travel to the end of each stage without getting hit. But, that is easier said than done.  Each Level (there are 6) contains 2 stages.  The first stage ends with you running away from Elmira who just wants to hug and kiss you.  Be careful, if she touches you it is back to the beginning of the stage.  The way to defeat her is just avoid her until a door appears and enter.

The second part of each level ends with a boss fight. The bosses may be characters from the cartoon but I didn’t recognize any of them. The levels are all pretty short but you will play each one dozens of times because every single one is insanely difficult.  The cute music, bright colors and cartoon theme hide the fact that this game is almost Castlevania hard.  The thing is, the controls are spot on and enemies spawn the same way each time you play so you can’t blame anyone but yourself.

Each time I would complete a level I would feel as if I could conquer the world but shortly after I would beat a level the next level would immediately crush my spirits.  After playing on and off for over a month I finally got to the last level (thank goodness for unlimited continues).  The last level consists of 5 stages and each one took 20+ tries to get through.  But, the thing that makes this stage horrific is that even if you get through all 5 stages and get the final boss of the game and die there is no checkpoint, you go back to the very beginning of the level.

I beat the final boss after 3 tries, but to get to the boss 3 times took me 100+ tries as I continually died on the 2nd and 3rd stages of the last level.

If the game wasn’t so difficult I would have given it a higher score but the insane difficulty could not overcome the tight controls, catchy music and familiar cartoon theme.