Every day Ben “Ben Pack” Pack or one of his brave compatriots (Mike Bachmann in this case) will play a retro game, and break it down for you. That’s right, every day. To complain about us eventually missing a day or suggest your own, go ahead and comment below the article, or email us at retrogamefunclub@gmail.com
9/17/2010
The Game: Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose
Release year: 1992
Skewes: SNES .... and that's about it.
So what's it like: Take Sonic, turn him into a rabbit, slow him down a bit (but let him spontaneously run on walls), give him a sweet back-flip donkey kick, and make it Tiny Toon themed. Actually, that's not like Sonic at all... forget I said that.
You're the best around. Nothing's gonna ever keep you down.
You start off being told by Babs Bunny that the school is overrun by animals from the zoo, which equates to animals wearing pants and hiding in lockers. That ultimately has nothing to do with anything and everything to do with nothing. From that point on, it's a nonsensical romp through six stages of the most random, unorganized collection of fan service and pop culture references I can remember in a licensed game. That's because there really is no story. It's clear that Konami developed the gameplay first and just threw together a sorry excuse for a narrative later. Ladies and gentlemen, that's exactly the way it should be.
Oh..um... thanks... I guess?
The thing that really grabbed me about TTA:BBL is that they took just a couple of simple core mechanics (jump, dash, and back-flip kick. That's it.) and somehow managed to incorporate them throughout the game in new and interesting ways. The examples of this are too many to list here but just play the train level and you'll know what I mean.
They'll let anyone into Yale these days.
Should you go back: Yes. Absolutely a thousand times yes. This game was one of my favorites for a reason. At no point do the game mechanics change but at no point do they become repetitive either. That speaks volumes about the quality of design. Also, it's fairly short. I played through the entire game before posting and I believe I clocked in at about an hour and a half.
Should this game be remade: Boy do I wish. This game was a well put-together game that deserves way more recognition than I'm sure it received. However, I feel the relevance hurdle would be too great to overcome. Instead, developers should focus on making licensed games that don't suck so hard.
After all this time, I kinda thought the Genesis game: Buster's Hidden Treasure, was the better game. I haven't reflected on that in many years; I told myself the Genesis game was better simply because it is much longer. Looking back, it's simply a Super Mario World knock-off, while not bad, certainly doesn't have the depth of gameplay mechanics of the SNES game. Well done, sir, you convinced me the SNES game was better.
ReplyDeleteDid I mention that the music was great?? I loved the subtle ways they worked the Tiny Tunes theme into every track.
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