[Review] Tiny Toon Adventures

REVIEW # 00000000 01010001

Hey Buster! I’ve kidnapped Babs Bunny!

Tiny Toon Adventures it’s a game that exploited the success of the TV show with the same name. It aired also in italy in the early 90s and I remember watching it everyday before they pulled the plug in favor of Animaniacs (which was fun as well). It follows the adventures of the WB characters we all loved but when they were kids and include also new characters modeled on classic WB protagonists, like my favourite Furrball.

My heart says…

Tiny Toon Adventures it was one of the few games that my best friend ad I owned when we were kids. We didn’t have that much to play and in two we only had like 7 or 8 games in total. She owned Tiny Toons and when I wanted to play I just had to go to the building next to mine where she lived and we have hours of play and that’s the reason why I fondly remember this game. not for being that groundbreaking experience, but because it was one of the few I could play with a friend. And we never completed it.

Splash screen

Pretty much what you expect from an NES game: Buster and Babs Bunny welcome you to their adventure. At least the music is catchy.

Graphics

Tiny Toon Adventures has the kind of graphics you can see in other cartoon-based games, like others licensed by Warner Bros. for example.

The classic graphics for a classic platformer that don’t suffer from slowing (except just one or two situations with 5-6 sprites on screen which start to flicker a bit) and it’s nice and colourful

Narrative

The super meagre plot is all about Montana Max who kidnapped Babs Bunny and Buster is tasked to save her with the help of Dizzy Devil, Furrball and Plucky Duck as main characters, and Hamton as a NPC.

Montana Max doesn’t give a f**k about his crime and he even send a message to Buster on the TV telling him he kidnapped Babs. What a rich bastard…

Gameplay

As a classic platformer, even in tiny toons Adventures the key skills involve paying attentions to the enemies, being good at jumping and possibly doing everything is the minimum amount of time. There are no power ups, so the gime is quite unforgiving under this aspect: one hit and you’re dead. The only way to avoid this fate is to collect hearts you can find popping the balloons you find here and there scattered througout the levels. When you don’t find the heart you’ll find a ball with a star on it that transforms the character you’re using into the other one you’ve chosen at the beginning of the world. The selection is between three different characters:

Dizzy Devil, slow and a bit sluggish, without the ability to run but with a handy tornado attack that could be vital in some stages;
Furrball, a balanced character with the ability to grasp on walls, a very handy feature for a not-so-skilled player who tends to fall into the gaps;
Plucky Duck, probably the best character of them all for its ability to fly, even though for small distances.

Of course the main character is Buster Bunny who hasn’t any particular ability and, in fact, you want to use him only at the beginning of the world.

The game consists of 6 different worlds, each one with three levels interspersed with a half-world boss, Elvira, from which you have to run away waiting for the door tho exit the room appears. The worlds are The Hills, The Wetlands, The Trees, Downtown, Wackyland and Montana Max’s Mansion. It’s impressive how most of Nintendo platformers start with a grass/trees/forest world.

The only exception to the three-levels rule is Wackyland that has only one level and you complete it collecting Dodos.

There are some recurring enemies, like the mice you can kill by stomping on their hear and some level specific foes, like the damn cats throwing empty cans from a pile of tyres. I hate them. The end level bosses can be beaten the same way, by jumping on their head three times. The only exception is the Gorilla who can be beaten only stomping on his babies to let him fall from where he stands.

Even the final boss, Montana Max is not different from the others so if you think you will take forever to beat him (like the fucking Jacquio in Ninja Gaiden) you better change your mind: easy like the others.

Controls

You need a bit of time to get accustomed to the controls; even though they’re the usual NES controls – D-pad to move, A to jump and B to run/perform an action – the characters are a bit slippery and they take some time to reach the maximum speed while running with the result that is difficult sometimes to stop the momentum. But little flaws apart, the games plays pretty well.

Sound

Of course the main tune is the Tiny Toon one even though you can’t hear it always througout the game but only in some levels (usually the ones that are set in open air). The other tunes are quite good in pure cartoon style, catchy enought to stick in your mind and dark enough when it comes to underground level or boss fights.

Longevity

I sincerely don’t understand why I have never completed this game before now. I mean I played it for thousand hours back then and I’ve never passed the fifth world. A couple of weeks ago I managed to beat it in only 4 hours. But honestly I couldn’t give a low grade because there should be a reason why I could’t beat it back then, so 7/10 is an average.

Final score 79/100