Tiny Toon Adventures (1991)

Preliminary: The Look and Sound are, well, very NES and basic, and I had a very long day at work and just generally tired. But I can't deny simple platformers that, better yet, have a bounce-off-enemies feature a la Mario. Lots of this reminds me of Mario of course, like sliding down hills, but there's nice variety of Powers with the different characters and as always, I love a run in a platformer. And I loved this screen the haircut :-p

Hmmmm but the level designs are getting exceptionally repetitive and bland already on the third level. And some of the collision masks are irritating. I am preferring the default Buster Bunny I think their name is because of the Run feature. But I will keep trying it cuz, well, I'm a sucker for platformers and also maybe it gets more interesting as it goes...

I'm confused what I'm doing wrong. No wonder it felt dull, the fourth level just brought me back to the first? Ohhh it's cuz this Elmyra person is a bad person?

It's not only inspired by Super Mario 3 and SMW, it feels like it's just straight from it heh. But it just isn't feeling as special as those. I'll give it another shot tomorrow otherwise moving on.

Meh. The music in the first "castle"/boss level was terrible and annoying. And the gameplay was only getting more annoying. Moving on.

Is it just me or does this game have permanent ice physics on all the levels? Coupled with the unexpected height and erratic control over jumps, I have to say that from first impressions Tiny Toons is a game that requires some time getting used to the controls. Other than that, the game is OK, a little more than just average.

The game is not very difficult, it takes only a few hours to finish it. You can play multiple characters using the selection screen, but I only used Plucky Duck which was the first option. I honestly felt no need to try the others.

The last level does have some unfair traps, however with some patience it can be beaten without major problems. Completed on emulator in about 2 hours.

My initial plan was to complete it with 1 of the each 3 characters you can choose in each playthrough but i decided to mix them up as there are section that are quite annoying with others, at least for the initial playthrough. Its probably possible to beat it with each as well and the game is somewhat short but it was a bit disappointing that it wasn´t better than i thought. Overall though i think its a nice challenging NES platformer that never makes you feel like turning it off entirely by being unfair. I wouldn´t call it a hidden gem as i was hoping for but its pretty solid without being remarkable. I am definitely intrigued in playing other titles in the franchise now.

It has a lot of pickups and sections positioned where the game lures you into traps, i am presuming they thought it would feel like one of those "oh no what happened" moments from the cartoons but it doesn´t really work in a videogame to troll the player into that in my honest opinion as it leads to annoyances and disliking the games platforming. The controls and visuals are overall great but the sliding ability in the game can lead to annoying deaths on a modern D-Pad controller like the Xbox One i used as it kind of reacts like you want to stand up quickly due to how hard its to press it down with the direction in most cases, i found my character to stand up rather quick in a few areas so i ended up getting killed by spikes in the game due to that.

Graphics: 8.5/10 (definitely one of the more vibrant and beautiful games, but a bit plain in some places)

Sound: 9.0/10 (It has decent variety but is mostly the great theme it has, sound and effects are never screeching)

Length: 5-12 hours (Surprisingly hard, you can breeze through the first stage but then it gets pretty darn hard after)

Difficulty: Medium to Very Hard

Replay Value: 8.0/10 (You can choose between 3 characters as companion, so you can atleast probably get 4 playthroughs with it by completing mixed and with each once and its rather challenging with some characters for certain sections)

Overall: 8.0/10

Platform:

NES

Description:

A fairly standard platformer from Konami, and the first in a series of games starring Buster Bunny and his friends

Liked:

It's a solid platformer with tight controls. Before each level you get to choose a character that which accompanies Buster into the next level, each one of them has a special ability, Dizzy can destroy some blocks and enemies, Furball can climb walls, Plucky can float. Also you collect carrots to gain lives, but you have find Hampton before can collect the lives. It's got Elmyra as a funny mid boss, where you just have to escape her hugs. The character animations in general are nicely done.

Disliked:

The character switching mechanic is a nice idea, but you can only switch by collecting a star powerup, and that happens usually only once or twice per world. so once you switch you usually stay like that until the boss. The levels are for the most part relatively bland, not really bad, but given that the same company made Castlevania years earlier which is filled with scenery, this could have looked nicer. Also the enemy behaviours are for the most part forgettable, either just standing around, occasionally jumping or walking from left to right.

Summary:

It's a solid game, but nothing that stands out too much. There are no serious flaws in the gameplay and the level layouts, but for some reason it fells a bit lifeless at times. It's good for a playthrough, but I wouldn't follow the opinion I found online several times that this is supposedly the next best thing to Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES.