Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland Review (Xbox): High Sponsorbilleries

For many millennials, the Rugrats cartoon show was a staple while growing up. As long as you had access to Nickelodeon in the 90s-early 00s, you probably spent a good amount of time watching Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil go about playing their larger-than-life games, even though they were just babies. This show was beloved by many who grew up during this period, myself included. That’s why I was intrigued to see Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland, a 2D platformer that uses a very nice art style that emulates the show. I was excited to jump in and see how the babies could whip up some nostalgia. Unfortunately, I quickly came away frustrated with a game that wanted to turn back the clock too far in a game sense.

Milking the 8-bit farm as much as possible

In almost nearly every instance, Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland feels like an original Game Boy or NES game. That’s very clearly the direction the developer was going for. At any time, you can pull up a menu and switch between the beautiful HD display or a more classic 8-bit look. On my first playthrough of the game, I did pretty much everything in HD because I love the art style. However, everything in Adventures in Gameland is built like an 8-bit game, so movement feels too stiff and unusual when playing in the cartoon style. There’s a bit of that in the 8-bit style, too, but it feels more at home there. The stiff play felt more off in HD. Too often, I felt like the game was just a tick too slow in registering my movements in the HD style, leading me to take double hits in many situations where an enemy was near a pit or missing jumps that I normally would make.

The gameplay, in general, is very simple here and feels heavily inspired by Mega Man and Super Mario Bros. 2. Your objective in all of the game’s six levels is to explore the 2D environment and find four Reptar tokens. After you find 20 tokens, you get to access a final seventh level that is essentially a gauntlet of everything you’ve already done thrown together. Outside of the opening living room level, there are branching paths and a boss at the end to overcome. You need to jump, throw blocks, and butt-stomp your way through various gadgets and toys to find all of the tokens. The exploration is nice, and the bosses are different enough to be notable inclusions. That said, I just couldn’t help but come away feeling frustrated with how easily the deaths piled up for me.

It’s a tough world for these babies

When you begin your save file in Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland, you are given three difficulties to choose from. Typically, I start all new games on the standard difficulty (called Baby, in this game), but I quickly found that to be a level that asked for too much. As you play, you can swap between babies to manage their health pools. If any baby loses all of their health, you lose them for the rest of the level.

Personally, I enjoyed playing with Chuckie the most. He has the highest jump of the babies but picks up blocks the slowest. There are instances where he can skip certain platforms that the other babies are forced to make their way through slowly. Because I was over-reliant on one baby, that often forced him to die the most when an enemy would hit me off a ledge, and I’d lose multiple health slots in one go. For the rest of the level, you’re forced then to play with the other babies, and if you don’t like them as much, like me, things quickly become tedious. Outside of boss battles, I didn’t find the lift stat to make much of an impact on the game, so jumping was always my go-to. Luckily, you can start a new save file with the easiest difficulty that removes the condition of losing your character for good when they run out of health, which made things much more manageable for me. I could not imagine trying to play this game on the hardest difficulty that only allows you to play as one baby in each level.

You’re not playing the show

I mentioned before how the gameplay in Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is hindered by a goal to feel like an 8-bit game at all times. While the HD display in-game looks pretty good, I was disappointed to see that this carries over into cutscenes and even the level introduction screen. When you choose a level, you get a static representation of how the show’s episodes would start. The iconic jingle is here, but the jagged text box is static and looks cheaply made. It’s the smallest of nitpicks, but if you’re going to make a Rugrats game, you should hit the nostalgic animation that each episode started within the show.

I was also very disappointed to see that the few cutscenes in the game are mostly static as well. There’s no voice acting, and after a couple of screens of still images, the characters begin talking on a blank background. This is likely so you can jump between the classic and 8-bit styles and not feel a drastic shift between the two, but it left me disappointed not to see these animated characters interacting with each other in a deeper way. Remember when Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl had no voice acting, and things felt empty? That’s how it is here.

Final verdict

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is a title that I came away from my first playthrough very frustrated. I found it far too easy to take damage, and while I love the HD art style, there were many times the levels just didn’t feel good to get through. Switching to the 8-bit style to find missing tokens was a little better because the janky gameplay matched the old graphic style. It’s not something that typically felt great, but it was more manageable. I think wanting to do two different styles for one game was too tall of a task and ended up dragging down the overall experience to a degree.

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland was reviewed on Xbox Series X with a code provided by The MIX Games. It is also available on PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

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