Review: Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland

There was truly nothing like the cartoon and movie tie-in games of the late ’80s and early ’90s. Back when the NES and SNES were the hot new consoles on the market, you could find your Saturday morning favorites in game cartridges just as well as on your TV. However, all you could do in games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers, or Batman was run, jump, throw, and shoot. Still, this managed to capture the imaginations of many who grew up during that time.

 

 

It might surprise you, but Nickelodeon’s Rugrats began airing in 1991 and didn’t receive its first proper video game adaptation, PlayStation’s Search For Reptar, until 1998. Fast forward to 2024, a full 20 years after the final episodes of the initial run of Rugrats ended, and three years after the Paramount+ reboot began. Enter developers Wallride and The MIX Games with the idea to create an early ‘90s period piece of sorts — a Rugrats video game that could have been released in the cartoon’s infancy, no pun intended.

Rugrats: Adventures In Gameland, an old-school side-scrolling platformer, has been hyped up since August 2023. In an astonishing move of dedication, the game was announced for release on every modern console and the NES. A real, working NES cartridge was created for the game, complete with 8-bit graphics, an audio chip, and its own unique in-game presentation. However, I’m here to say that modern consoles are firmly in the sweet spot, allowing you to switch between a slick hand-drawn graphics style that looks like the Rugrats cartoon in motion and the intended 8-bit style. The same goes for the audio, with a chiptune soundtrack created for the NES and a modern, flashy soundtrack created for newer consoles. I appreciated this, as it feels like Adventures In Gameland could have been released at the tail end of the NES’s life, but also featured on the SNES with a separate, higher-end version of the game. Though I’m sure fans of the show will be disappointed that the limitations of old game design mean no voice acting is present.

 

 

The premise of Adventures In Gameland is simple. The babies, gathered at the Pickles’ residence, catch wind of a commercial for a Reptar video game and immediately want to recreate what they just saw. Coupled with Angelica, who agrees to play along as long as she’s “the boss,” the Rugrats embark on a madcap journey around the Pickles’ home. You get to play as Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil. Chuckie has the highest jump, Lil can float using her dress à la Princess Peach, and Tommy and Phil are all-rounders.

With six levels to play through in any order of your choosing, each represented by a different room or area of the home, the toddlers’ vivid imaginations turn an attic into a Castlevania-esque dungeon crawl or a fridge into an icy, mechanical winter wonderland. A particular highlight was the bedroom level, which emulated a wild, nightmarish dream sequence reminiscent of the show. Warped faces of clowns and Dummi Bears, as well as Drew Pickles as a crescent moon (from the Slumber Party episode), could all be spotted in the background beneath a dreamy purple sky. The artwork is textured and beautiful to look at, if not a little creepy. This is Klasky Csupo in all their twisted glory, after all.

 

 

How old-school is Adventures In Gameland? Well, it definitely adheres to the Super Mario Bros. 2 playbook, as in both The Lost Levels and Doki Doki Panic. You have multiple characters, each with different jumping stats, and you get to choose which you want to be at any given time. Your only methods of taking down enemies like teddy bears, cassette players, and Mr. Friend dolls are ground-pounding out of a jump or picking them up and throwing them. So far, so familiar, right?

The difficulty is high, with devious enemy placement and precarious jumps to make. Some enemies are even positioned to make you unavoidably lose hit points. However, selecting a difficulty is a crucial task and is the most interesting aspect of the game. If you play on the easiest difficulty, you have unlimited lives and can swap between all four babies at will. The normal difficulty, which is what I played on, lets you swap between babies, but with four hit points each. When one baby falls, you choose which to play next until all the babies have run out of lives. Then you see the game-over screen. And believe me when I say I saw it at least 10–15 times in my four-hour playthrough.

This is not baby’s first video game. That’s why the inclusion of a third, hard difficulty with no option of swapping characters is only recommended for those who seek a true, old-head challenge. I found myself wishing I had chosen the lowest difficulty due to the unlimited lives. This playstyle serves to make the numerous cheap deaths much more manageable.

 

 

What kept me going through the admittedly brutal difficulty of the game was waiting to see how each level looked, what episodes it referenced, and how the bosses played out. No one level referenced just a single episode. For instance, the fridge level features Ice Cream Mountain throughout most of its runtime but culminates in a boss battle against four of the Dummi Bears. The backyard level sees you fighting demonic garden hoses and flying parrots while climbing vines in a jungle setting, but at the end of it, you fight Thorg from the Toy Palace episode.

The boss battles are simple but fun, usually requiring you to pick up an enemy and throw them at the boss three or so times. Even still, the way the bosses weren’t just fights but sequences you had to play through was a welcome surprise. The splicing of different references in each level and boss fight, in addition to the sublimely chill original soundtrack, also really enticed me to keep playing to the very end.

It’s worth noting that Adventures In Gameland is first and foremost a collectathon. Each of the six levels tasks you with collecting three Reptar tokens, earning a fourth when you defeat each level’s boss for a total of 24 tokens altogether. Collecting all 24 will unlock the Reptar door in the Pickles’ house and give you access to the true final level of the game. Warning: It will test you on everything you have just accomplished too. In addition, you’ll need to find a screwdriver to unlock the playpen gate at the end of each level to fight the boss. All of these collectibles are mandatory to complete the game and see the credits roll.

 

 

Optionally, cookies can be found during your playthrough and will refill your health bar as well as give you a second health bar if you lose all of your hit points. Keep in mind that only the character who obtains the cookie receives the benefits of it, not the entire party. This makes swapping characters even more strategic, and I appreciated the design choice. I usually ended up swapping to Chuckie thanks to his floaty jump and letting him grab the cookies.

Going along with the ‘90s theme, couch co-op for an additional player is included. I tried handing the second controller to my three-month-old son, but he only wanted to chew on it. You should probably not hope that an actual baby will be able to play a Rugrats game, but I wanted to gauge the target demographic. Judging from the high difficulty, I’d say ‘80s and ‘90s kids, and maybe even a few Y2K babies, are who this game is especially made for.

 

 

Does Rugrats: Adventures In Gameland succeed in giving Rugrats a classic, challenging platformer to call its own? I would say yes, maybe even a little too well. I died many times to tricky enemy placement and nasty bottomless pits. While doing so, I couldn’t deny that the game design felt firmly rooted in the NES era of pattern recognition. The developers definitely studied up on what made the side-scroller great back when Rugrats was popular. As a result, we are left with an authentic 1990s time capsule of a video game, warts and all. And yes, we get a chiptune version of the Rugrats theme song.

With slick, clean, and colorful presentation evoking the squiggles and confetti designs of the ‘90s, a catchy and vibrant soundtrack that stands up to the best chiptune compilations, faithful and incredible artwork, numerous visual Easter eggs, and easy-to-grasp controls, Adventures In Gameland is a short but sweet nostalgia trip. NES gamers and fans of the show will definitely “potty” like it’s 1993.

Leave a Comment