Main game
2.56 average rating based on 16 ratings
It's what you'd expect from a licensed 3D action-adventure of the era; calling it a platformer would be amiss, since in the levels where you have to do some level of upward navigation that mechanic is generally not executed too great. That and there are also a few shmup levels. The stealth level where you play as Numbuh 5 on the pirate ship is atrocious; she really got a raw deal getting stuck with the worst moveset in both this game and the GBA one, Operation S.O.D.A. The level where you explore Knightbrace's cave as Numbuh 1 can be too at the beginning until you realize you have to use the special attacks you only have limited charge for to progress, which you never have to do at any other point in the game (funnily, that level also has a pretty clunkily executed Pac-Man parody bit, something that was also in Ultima Underworld, making this the second game I've played recently where I've run into that kind of thing without expecting it). Everything else is pretty alright, even if there's parts like the level between the two I've just mentioned where the reuse of the maps from the earlier level …
It's what you'd expect from a licensed 3D action-adventure of the era; calling it a platformer would be amiss, since in the levels where you have to do some level of upward navigation that mechanic is generally not executed too great. That and there are also a few shmup levels. The stealth level where you play as Numbuh 5 on the pirate ship is atrocious; she really got a raw deal getting stuck with the worst moveset in both this game and the GBA one, Operation S.O.D.A. The level where you explore Knightbrace's cave as Numbuh 1 can be too at the beginning until you realize you have to use the special attacks you only have limited charge for to progress, which you never have to do at any other point in the game (funnily, that level also has a pretty clunkily executed Pac-Man parody bit, something that was also in Ultima Underworld, making this the second game I've played recently where I've run into that kind of thing without expecting it). Everything else is pretty alright, even if there's parts like the level between the two I've just mentioned where the reuse of the maps from the earlier level where you go after Count Spankulot is pretty blatant, but not all licensed games can be like Simpsons Hit & Run I guess. Then there's the final shmup level, which is largely "how many Star Wars references can we cram into the space of 20 minutes or so" (not that the show itself was a stranger to this, with "Operation S.N.O.W.I.N.G." being an all-out parody of The Empire Strikes Back). I played with RetroAchievements on, and you can forget about the "beat the bosses without taking a hit" ones; really did not feel worth pursuing (there's even one for doing the entire first shmup level without getting hit and I can only think, who would do this). One other detail that seems kinda funny to me is that the final boss in this game is a fusion of a bunch of different villains, which was also done in Crash Bandicoot The Huge Adventure, a game developed by Vicarious Visions who also did Operation S.O.D.A. before this game, but had no hand in this one. What degree from Kevin Bacon are we on?
The icing on the cake though is that I only decided to play these games on a whim after going on a recent rewatch binge of the cartoon, which I had never watched in its entirety before, but NOT the original, rather the Latin American Spanish dub, which is one of the funniest and most charming cartoon dubs ever made (think Ghost Stories but not quite as crude)— but as you might imagine, the writing/VA in this game did not fall under that, so it was only partly worthwhile. It was a nice break from some of the more AAA-adjacent games I've ended up resorting to lately anyways.