I’m going to preface this review by admitting that I was never a big fan of the TV show Tiny Toon Adventures. It’s not that it was a bad show per se, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Despite being within the target demographic when it regularly aired on television as soon as the theme song started up I would usually change the channel. Though it was less repetitive than Looney Toons (which I flat out did not like) the characters were exceptionally boring to me, and the episodic stories felt like worse versions of what other shows were doing at the time. With that said almost every successful license had a video game based on it, and Tiny Toon Adventures was no exception. This title was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, and I recall seeing screenshots of it in an old Sears catalogue. I was immediately intrigued because it looked remarkably like Super Mario Bros. 3, but I never cared quite enough to ask for it for a birthday or Christmas. Years later I found a second hand copy of the game for cheap and didn’t hesitate to add it to my collection. It was immediately clear that Tiny Toon Adventures on the Nintendo Entertainment System is one of those rare licensed games where the developers put a lot of effort into it.
It’s worth noting that while most of the great licensed video games of the 8-bit era were developed by Capcom. Tiny Toon Adventures however was helmed by rival company Konami who isn’t well known for making games based on licenses. With that tidbit aside let’s get to the story. Tiny Toon Adventures features characters and enemies based on the cartoon series and puts them in an all new scenario; Babs Bunny has been kidnapped by Montana Max, and it’s up to the series protagonists including Buster Bunny, Plucky Duck, Furball, and Dizzy Devil to work together to save her. The game is your basic side scrolling platformer; as one of the four characters you make your way from one end of a stage to the next while jumping on top of enemies and jumping across bottomless pits. Your character dies after taking one hit, but by collecting the heart item you can be damaged once before losing a life. Scattered throughout each stage are carrots of which you can collect up to 99. They’re functionally similar to the coins from the Super Mario Bros. series, but here you cash them in to Hampton the pig (whom you can find behind hidden doors in many of the stages) for extra lives. What’s cool is that you get a 1up for every thirty that you trade in to him.
I mentioned earlier that you can play as four different characters, and that’s largely what sets Tiny Toon Adventures apart. The system for using them is a little weird however, but bear with me here. By default you always start out a new world as Buster, but are given your choice of a secondary character from the other three protagonists. You can’t switch between them on the fly; instead you must find a special power-up that does this automatically. Now the main problem I have with this is that this item isn’t found in every single stage, and sometimes it’s well hidden. Each has their own special abilities that help get past specific obstacles, but often times you can’t take advantage of it because you’re stuck as someone else. The four characters are all pretty well defined in terms of gameplay and offer up some pretty interesting abilities. Buster Bunny is the most boring because he has no special skill, but can jump higher than the others. Plucky Duck was my favorite of the bunch because he can flap his wings in mid jump which allows him to fall slower (similar to the raccoon suit from Super Mario Bros. 3) and he can swim with ease (in a similar fashion to the frog suit also from SMB3). I generally didn’t bother too much with the other two; Furball can climb walls but I rarely found this to be as useful as it sounds, and Dizzy Devil has the shortest jump but has a spin attack which can defeat enemies and break through certain blocks. Despite the fact that I went with Plucky ninety percent of the time the fact that the game offers two other choices is pretty cool.
The level design is one of the high points of this experience. Each stage has a nice variety of different obstacles with new ones being introduced in each and every world. Tiny Toon Adventures never gets old because there’s quite a lot of gameplay diversity contained within this cartridge. Even the boss fights are really well done. First off on every second stage of each world you must face off against the character Elmyra. This encounter is unlike any other in the game because being touched by her (or the hearts she emits around her) results in an instant death. Your goal, rather than defeating her, is to avoid her for a specific amount of time until an exit door appears at which point you move on to the next stage. It’s a great mix-up to the standard gameplay. The other boss characters are more traditional but feature unique patterns and can be quite challenging most of the time. I liked Tiny Toon Adventures, and the only real problem is that upon finishing it I wanted more. The game is short with only six worlds with most featuring three stages apiece. Each level lasts only a couple of minutes long. If you have any skill with the genre you’ll be able to finish this game in an hour, and it’s not particularly challenging either.
Graphically the game is on point. This is a later release in the lifespan of the original Nintendo and by this time Konami had learned some tricks to make it really shine in the visuals department. Tiny Toon Adventures hit the market very closely to Castlevania III, and though both look great this is the superior title in terms of graphics. The characters animate exceptionally well for an 8-bit game and are easily distinguishable from their counterparts in the cartoon. There’s far less flicker and slowdown here than in your typical release on the platform, and the fact that Konami built such a solid engine for this release is a showcase to the amount of care and devotion they had to doing the license right. The soundtrack is also very technically sound (pun intended) but honestly I didn’t really care for it. You have a great rendition of the opening theme in the first few stages, but this gave me flashbacks to the days where I would simply change the channel. The rest of the music I don’t believe is from the television series, but it fits the game quite well. While I’m not a fan of the soundtrack itself I can appreciate the authenticity of it.
Tiny Toon Adventures may not be a household name anymore, but because of the excellent job of integrating the license into this title I’m sure old fans will really appreciate this old release. Even fans of the genre will find a lot to like about this game. It may not be Super Mario Bros. 3 but I was constantly reminded of it, and I would venture to guess that was a major point of inspiration to the development team. This is a great example of a good licensed release and it deserves a spot in everyone’s collection.
