I had set the bar for this game pretty low, considering it's a game based off an episode of a TV show, but wow, maybe I should've set the bar lower. This game is basically discount Luigi's Mansion without any of the good parts of Luigi's Mansion. The game feels very frontloaded, as the latter half of the game barely has any levels at all and feels like "do one stage, then the resident bad boss fight."
Speaking of the boss fights, all of them are pretty awful, but I'd say the Frozen Lake Boss is the worst of the bunch. At least with the Playground Boss and Rollercoaster Boss, they're easy once you figure out their gimmicks. but with the Frozen Lake, you're fighting against ice physics. I also learned that if you die, you have to do the fight over again. Very much a 2004 thing, but not any less annoying to deal with ice physics. The final boss is just a combo of the previous three bosses and their skills, but with the same ice physics in the Frozen Lake Boss.
Most of the gizmos you can make are gimmick items that serve no use while others are more usable, like the Speed Sneakers for general speed and the Sticky Sneakers to handle those pesky ice physics. The Health Recharge is useful too when you need health and you're waiting for health pickups to respawn. Most of the inventions and super inventions felt like they barely had time in the sun beyond the VDR and the Sheenograph, as they're both mandatory for capturing the Twonkies Luigi's Mansion vacuum style. Goddard also felt very underused as well, only being used in a couple of levels and totally ditched after that for the rest of the game.
The only level I liked a bit is actually the one that gatekept me from beating it as a kid, the Retroland level, where you need to play the arcade games to get tokens to reach the rollercoaster, which goes directly to a boss fight after a cutscene level. The arcade games were a fun distraction, but I know why I never beat this game as a kid, and it's that you're required to get the high score on all the games to progress. It's not hard, but it may require a bit of patience, something child me didn't have much of.
All in all, it's a game based on a TV show, and these kinds of things generally aren't very good to begin with. This game is one example of that.
Speaking of the boss fights, all of them are pretty awful, but I'd say the Frozen Lake Boss is the worst of the bunch. At least with the Playground Boss and Rollercoaster Boss, they're easy once you figure out their gimmicks. but with the Frozen Lake, you're fighting against ice physics. I also learned that if you die, you have to do the fight over again. Very much a 2004 thing, but not any less annoying to deal with ice physics. The final boss is just a combo of the previous three bosses and their skills, but with the same ice physics in the Frozen Lake Boss.
Most of the gizmos you can make are gimmick items that serve no use while others are more usable, like the Speed Sneakers for general speed and the Sticky Sneakers to handle those pesky ice physics. The Health Recharge is useful too when you need health and you're waiting for health pickups to respawn. Most of the inventions and super inventions felt like they barely had time in the sun beyond the VDR and the Sheenograph, as they're both mandatory for capturing the Twonkies Luigi's Mansion vacuum style. Goddard also felt very underused as well, only being used in a couple of levels and totally ditched after that for the rest of the game.
The only level I liked a bit is actually the one that gatekept me from beating it as a kid, the Retroland level, where you need to play the arcade games to get tokens to reach the rollercoaster, which goes directly to a boss fight after a cutscene level. The arcade games were a fun distraction, but I know why I never beat this game as a kid, and it's that you're required to get the high score on all the games to progress. It's not hard, but it may require a bit of patience, something child me didn't have much of.
All in all, it's a game based on a TV show, and these kinds of things generally aren't very good to begin with. This game is one example of that.