GOTD 6/16/2016: Tiny Toon Adventures 2 (NES)

[celerystalker]

Tiny Toon Adventures only aired for a couple of seasons, but managed to produce a healthy library of episodes that really took hold in pop culture. Konami's video games based on the franchise did a great job of representing the source material while still being very playable games. While the first Tiny Toons game was a pretty direct platformer, the developers decided to change things up for the sequel. Buster receives a cryptic letter inviting him and his friends to Wacky Land amusement park to see its new attraction, a mysterious mansion. Buster nuts up and gathers buddies Furball, Plucky, Babs, and Hampton to find out what all this shit is about.

In order to gain entry to this house of horrors, the gang must gather four golden tickets by surviving Wacky Land's needlessly reckless attractions. Each character can access a specific ride: Furball hits the log flume, Hampton takes the train ride, Plucky the bumper cars, and Babs gets the dubious pleasure of riding a roller coaster so dubiously designed that Gogo himself might rather sit it out. Each ride is fraught with hazards and scoring opportunities, but you must spend tickets in order to enter each.

Tickets can be purchased at the ticket booth in exchange for points. Rides can be taken in any order, and each has a different cost and ways to score. Furball can grab fish, Babs can snap up grapes, Hampton can snag cupcakes and bop enemies with his belly, and Plucky can rack up all manner of points in his bumper car rumble in pinball-like fashion. In order to cater to the younger crowd that likely would have wanted the game in its time, there is also a feature allowing you to enter the house with 50 regular tickets instead of the four golden tickets in case an event was too difficult.

The final stage pits Buster against villains Elmyra and Montana Max (isn't it always Monty?) in a labyrinthine house filled with platforming reminiscent of the original game. Control here is spot on, and Buster can run, jump, slide, and kick his way to glory by navigating the doors that transport him from room to room and floor to ceiling. At the end of the game there is a showdown with mean old Monty as a lead in to a jaunty parade. Hooray!

Tiny Toon Adventures 2 is brief, consisting of only the four rides, the maze, and two boss fights. The rides are generally pretty fun, though the train is a bit slow and dull, and the roller coaster is noticeably more difficult than the rest of the game. It's a fun play now and again, though, especially for a Tiny Toons fan. I like it as a nice diversion every couple of years.

Played this one?

[FoxNtd]

It wasn't a long game was it was good. The variety of challenges in each level keeps the adventure fresh one level to the next. I used to own this for NES long ago, but never thought about whether I should get a Famicom copy. Always been curious if the first game is better in terms of gameplay and length.

By the way why don't you use a capture device rather than a camera? I just got one for ten bucks that supports both composite and s-video which is great for all my retro consoles.

[celerystalker]

It wasn't a long game was it was good. The variety of challenges in each level keeps the adventure fresh one level to the next. I used to own this for NES long ago, but never thought about whether I should get a Famicom copy. Always been curious if the first game is better in terms of gameplay and length.

By the way why don't you use a capture device rather than a camera? I just got one for ten bucks that supports both composite and s-video which is great for all my retro consoles.

I've not played the Famicom version. It'd be pretty neat to find out that it had different rides.

Welp, there are a few reasons I don't use a capture device, though I'm not saying I never would. A little insight into the process, just for kicks... mind you, this is all reasons/excuses, not complaints.

I work about 50 hours a week at my salary job, and my wife and I have an 18 month old at home. So, when I get home from work, I of course first spend time with them, playing with my son, helping to feed him, etc., and once he goes down, I try to spend some one on one time with my wife and help with any housework. She usually goes to bed pretty early, by 9 or so, and that's my window if I'm gonna play and post. It takes about an hour and a half to beat a game, photograph it, and write it up, so after playing and taking pictures with my phone, I hit the shower, then sit up in bed and write it up on my phone and upload the photos from it sitting next to my sleeping wife, quietly laughing to myself when she snores. Being able to do it all quickly from my phone is the most time-effective solution for me.

The other thing that has kept me from purchasing a capture device is that I imagine it being somewhat unweildly to use given my setup. Here are a few pictures of how I play:



I play most standard console stuff on three identical 27" CRT TVs, using the back S-video inputs and side composite for system selectors. I may be incorrect, not having used one before, but it seems like it might be unwieldly.



My Neo Geo AES is set up on the most early '90s Trinitron/speaker setup I could come up with. This would probably pretty easy to do with a capture device I'd guess.



The HD stuff I play on a 32" HDTV mounted on the wall behind the bar, where I can sit and play with wireless controllers. The three systems hooked up there each use separate HDMI and component inputs ran through the wall, so I don't know how hard that might be.



Arcade stuff I play on the cabinets. I do have a supergun that I built as well, and that would work for some JAMMA stuff, but other than that, they all use the usual arcade RGB connection, and I just swap out pcbs for what I want to play. No idea if I could do anything to capture these save the supergun use.

So, basically, I didn't set it up with ease of capture in mind, and worry about how much time it might add to the process. Admittedly, though, I have zero experience with capture devices, so I'm open to ideas and suggestions so long as it can be pretty simple, as the sole use would be DP posts. If nothing else, I hope it's a vaguely amusing insight into the posts and an admission of inexperience.

[lendelin]

Thanks for posting the pics of your gaming set up. I have no experience with capture devices, but I LOVE your setup overall and in particular the Trinitron/speaker setup.

[celerystalker]

Thanks for posting the pics of your gaming set up. I have no experience with capture devices, but I LOVE your setup overall and in particular the Trinitron/speaker setup.

Thanks! It just seemed like the thing to do with a Neo Geo.

[bb_hood]

Played this one?

Yeah... Ive played this. Quite frankly I dont think its a very good game. Its just not fun. 3 out of the first 4 levels are slow auto scrollers, and the fourth is a short bumper car game that feels more like a bonus stage than a level. The final stage is just annoying. Its a maze which isnt too hard to figure out, but there are annoying platforming sections at the very end. Die at the end and you have to do the maze all over again (and you will die at the end). The final boss is really easy, probably the most easy part in the game. So, yeah. I really dont like this game that much.

[celerystalker]

Yeah... Ive played this. Quite frankly I dont think its a very good game. Its just not fun. 3 out of the first 4 levels are slow auto scrollers, and the fourth is a short bumper car game that feels more like a bonus stage than a level. The final stage is just annoying. Its a maze which isnt too hard to figure out, but there are annoying platforming sections at the very end. Die at the end and you have to do the maze all over again (and you will die at the end). The final boss is really easy, probably the most easy part in the game. So, yeah. I really dont like this game that much.

I get your point. I do disagree on a couple things, though... the roller coaster stage isn't slow, but it is another auto-scroller, but that's just a difference, not an improvement that would change anyone's mind. The other is the maze being difficult... not sure I died on that even as a kid. Still, you're entirely justified as to your dislike. It's not a serious challenge. I just like it as a fun throwback, and it probably gets a little help for me by being a game I played at a cousin's house to get through some boring family parties as a kid.

[bb_hood]

I get your point. I do disagree on a couple things, though... the roller coaster stage isn't slow, but it is another auto-scroller, but that's just a difference, not an improvement that would change anyone's mind. The other is the maze being difficult... not sure I died on that even as a kid. Still, you're entirely justified as to your dislike. It's not a serious challenge. I just like it as a fun throwback, and it probably gets a little help for me by being a game I played at a cousin's house to get through some boring family parties as a kid.

The roller coaster stage is the worst.. it takes forever for the platform to ascend at the beginning of the stage. And if you die you have to sit through the beginning. I found that to be annoying.

[celerystalker]

The roller coaster stage is the worst.. it takes forever for the platform to ascend at the beginning of the stage. And if you die you have to sit through the beginning. I found that to be annoying.

I agree with that completely. That stage is far and away the hardest part of the game, and too long in a short game.

[Edmond Dantes]

This game reminds me of the time when gas stations used to do game rentals. Funny thing... one gas station I used to often visit (because it was near where I lived) had Little Samson. Its amazing how random games I see as a kid wind up being Important Things later in life.

I think I rented Tiny Toons 2 at the same time as Gargoyle's Quest II (might say I got a two-for-two deal ). I remember this feeling somehow that the NES may have been on the way out, though I can't clearly recall if I owned a SNES or a Genesis yet.

The thing that stands out about Tiny Toons 2 to me was beating it without a Game Genie.

Okay, personal history, as a kid I was really into the Game Genie because I had somehow gotten it in my head that video games were unbeatable without cheating (and some, like Dino-Riki, were unbeatable WITH cheating). The only game I ever managed to beat Game Genie-less before Tiny Toons 2 was Ducktales. But then came the late NES era, where there were a lot of games I wanted to play for which codes did not exist--at least, so it seemed to me, who was never a subscriber to Galoob's codebook update thingy (Geo was, but that didn't help ME much), so for all intents and purposes a lot of late-era NES games might as well have never had codes.

You gotta imagine how intimidating that was for me, so used to always cheating, and then being forced to not do it. What's weird about this is this is a demon that only haunted me on the NES. When it came to the Genesis, Gameboy or SNES, I never had any such coniptions--mostly because I beat most of those games routinely. Now you gotta remember I was a dumb kid at the time, so rather than think something logical like "my skills improved" or "I'm older therefore smarter now," I instead fell into this habit of seeing the NES as.... kind of daunting. Like whenever I thought of playing an NES game pure, no-cheats, I thought it would just eat me.

I'm not sure exactly when I finally got over that stupid line of thought. Ducktales didn't help as it had come early and I had seen my success in that game as being a fluke (and because I was playing in easy mode) but Tiny Toons 2 was a latecomer, but I still managed to pwn it before the rental time was up. I remember hating the ending as a kid. "A stupid parade? That's it?"

I used to really like this cartoon too. I'm not sure why, as nowadays its cringeworthy to watch... altho far less so than the later "Steven Spielburg Presents" line of animation. I'm far less irritated with Tiny Toons than I am with Animaniacs, for instance: Tiny Toons at least has characters who aren't obnoxious jerks who just repeat the same joke over and over... well, for the most part. Even as a kid I hated it whenever they would have episodes focusing on boring one-offs. Did anyone ever actually like those damn singing roach-girls?

[Emperor Megas]

I used to really like this cartoon too. I'm not sure why, as nowadays its cringeworthy to watch...

There was this Tiny Toons episode, or movie, or special or something called How I Spend My Summer Vacation...or something like that. IIRC, Plucky was stuck in a car road tripping with Hamton's family, and they were all pigs. I mean, sure, they're literally pigs, but they were all REALLY obnoxious and disgusting, and Plucky was losing his shit because he was stuck in as hot car with them. Anyway, I remember this one part where plucky was burning up in the car (I think the A/C was busted or something) and he ended up (unknowingly) swallowing a HUGE mouth full of one of the pig's armpit sweat. I remember laughing myself hoarse watching that shit. I mean I literally was tearing up.

I haven't seen that shit in like 20 years, so I don't know if it'd still be funny to me now or just cringe worthy. I'll have to check it out again.

[Edmond Dantes]

That was a direct-to-video movie. I remember sometimes I'd tune into the show and they'd have cut that up into a four-part episode... which, since I had the movie on video (it was the first Tiny Toons ANYTHING on VHS) I always took to mean I'd have to skip the show for the rest of the week.

Admittedly I actually enjoyed that movie a little last time I watched it. My friend Geo had a habit (not sure if he still does) of watching it once every suffer because, to him, it reminds him of when "Summer Vacation" was a magical time of fun and discovery and not "those really annoying hot months," which is the same way I enjoyed it. But I never liked gross-out humor and remember somewhat enjoying Buster and Babs' bits more than Plucky's (in general for me Tiny Toons was all about the rabbits and I tended to get annoyed at anyone else. Likewise with Animaniacs if the segment didn't star the Warners, Rita and Runt, or Slappy Squirrel I immediately dreaded it).

[celerystalker]

That was a direct-to-video movie. I remember sometimes I'd tune into the show and they'd have cut that up into a four-part episode... which, since I had the movie on video (it was the first Tiny Toons ANYTHING on VHS) I always took to mean I'd have to skip the show for the rest of the week.

Admittedly I actually enjoyed that movie a little last time I watched it. My friend Geo had a habit (not sure if he still does) of watching it once every suffer because, to him, it reminds him of when "Summer Vacation" was a magical time of fun and discovery and not "those really annoying hot months," which is the same way I enjoyed it. But I never liked gross-out humor and remember somewhat enjoying Buster and Babs' bits more than Plucky's (in general for me Tiny Toons was all about the rabbits and I tended to get annoyed at anyone else. Likewise with Animaniacs if the segment didn't star the Warners, Rita and Runt, or Slappy Squirrel I immediately dreaded it).

I don't hate Tiny Toons, but I never just loved the hell out of it, though I do tend to like the games based on it. Animaniacs, though, I find insufferable to watch these days, and its games suck as well. Slappy the Squirrel is the only part I can stand. It was always much more mean-spirited and meaningless than the rest of the show, which was interesting and almost nihilistic for a kids' show. I always remember when Slappy fed Roger Ebert (or an obvious stand-in) popcorn topped with fat liposuctioned from his own gut for butter.

[Emperor Megas]

I really didn't like Animaniacs. I liked Slappy Squirrel and The Good Feathers (at least the first episode with them), but I couldn't tolerate the Warners. The only thing I admittedly got a kick out of is when Wacko would sing and constantly say "Jack!" inbetween the bars. That was legit funny. Besides that, I found them insufferable.

[bb_hood]

There was this Tiny Toons episode, or movie, or special or something called How I Spend My Summer Vacation...or something like that. IIRC, Plucky was stuck in a car road tripping with Hamton's family, and they were all pigs. I mean, sure, they're literally pigs, but they were all REALLY obnoxious and disgusting, and Plucky was losing his shit because he was stuck in as hot car with them. Anyway, I remember this one part where plucky was burning up in the car (I think the A/C was busted or something) and he ended up (unknowingly) swallowing a HUGE mouth full of one of the pig's armpit sweat. I remember laughing myself hoarse watching that shit. I mean I literally was tearing up.

I haven't seen that shit in like 20 years, so I don't know if it'd still be funny to me now or just cringe worthy. I'll have to check it out again.

That was a direct-to-video movie. I remember sometimes I'd tune into the show and they'd have cut that up into a four-part episode... which, since I had the movie on video (it was the first Tiny Toons ANYTHING on VHS) I always took to mean I'd have to skip the show for the rest of the week.

Admittedly I actually enjoyed that movie a little last time I watched it. My friend Geo had a habit (not sure if he still does) of watching it once every suffer because, to him, it reminds him of when "Summer Vacation" was a magical time of fun and discovery and not "those really annoying hot months," which is the same way I enjoyed it. But I never liked gross-out humor and remember somewhat enjoying Buster and Babs' bits more than Plucky's (in general for me Tiny Toons was all about the rabbits and I tended to get annoyed at anyone else. Likewise with Animaniacs if the segment didn't star the Warners, Rita and Runt, or Slappy Squirrel I immediately dreaded it).

Yeah it was a movie! And I remember spending a weekend watching it with my brother. I also remember enjoying it alot back then. I used to watch Tiny Toons alot when I was a kid. It was good and I liked it, but I wasnt crazy about it. I used to go crazy for the original Looney Tunes when they showed them on Nickelodeon.
Animaniacs was good, it had pinky and the brain. I never watched the show much but it was ok. The thing I remember most about that show is "Hello Nurse"


When Celery gets back from vacation he should review Tiny Toons Cartoon Workshop.