Tiny Toon Adventures was a great show. Even long after it was over, I continued to enjoy the wackiness in the reruns. The video games based on it however are… hit or miss. To pay homage to such an influential show, I’m going to review one of the “hits”: Buster’s Hidden Treasure for the Sega Genesis.
The first thing I noticed about the game was that it seemed a little derivative, especially since it’s on the Genesis. Think about it, blue woodland creature that’s very fast and is a great jumper… on the Genesis. Sound familiar? (Sonic music plays) But I do think it’s all just coincidence, what other abilities would a rabbit have? But really, the game isn’t that similar to Sonic. The levels seem designed for jumping instead of running, Buster has the ability to slide, wall jump and call on one of his friends to kill all enemies on screen, there’s a world map, the carrots you collect don’t give you lives and your health is determined by how many hearts you have. It’s not really ripping off any one platform game; it’s kind of like a little bit of all of them and pulls it off quite nicely.
The controls aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee… Average. All the buttons are quite responsive and controlling direction is easy, so I can’t really bash them much. But, the slide is difficult to use at a time when it would be useful, jumping can end too suddenly and running starts up slowly. It doesn’t help that, once you start getting momentum, the level will throw you an obstacle just to ruin it.
Speaking of annoyances with running and jumping, here’s the sound effect Buster makes when you jump *plays* and here’s the one he makes if you’re running and you jump *plays*. Yeah, get used to it, since you jump a lot in this game.
Like I said, this game has a world map. This means that you can go back to replay levels, which is great because there are secret levels throughout the game. Because there are so many levels to play through, this game has a password system (since a save feature was apparently rare on the Genesis). It’s good they got around it, but they’re quite long and repetitive. Just to show you, I’m going to read one, but the Bs will be replaces with the normal jumping noise and the Ls with the running jump. Ready? BBBQ LLDL DLBB LDLL DLTM See? I haven’t done the exact calculations, but I’m sure the code could have been shorter. At the end of each “section”, there’s a boss. Often, it’ll be one of the other tiny toon characters under the control of Professor Gene Splicer. They are way too easy, enough said.
One thing that I really liked about the game are the graphics. They really capture the look of the show. They’re stylish and smooth. The colors are vibrant and clear. The different poses are well pulled off and it really brings the fun of playing this game to the level of fun watching the show was.
I am not doing this game justice. Despite all the flaws it has, it’s really an enjoyable gaming experience. It combines so many familiar game play elements so well that trying to find all the different paths and levels in this game becomes just as entertaining as playing them. If you liked Tiny Toon Adventures or platforming games, I strongly suggest that you give this game a try. I give Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster’s Hidden Treasure 8 out of 10 levels.
I’m Leo Melanson, and now you know the score.
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