I made a full review of this game on YouTube, but the short of it is that while I think this game does have some enjoyable aspects to it, such as the control and map design, there are a lot of other issues that bring down the experience. Trying to catch DeeDees with the grapple arm usually isn't that bad, but every so often you get an instance where try as you might, DeeDee will refuse to get caught by the arm even though you swear the sprite went directly through her. Then there's the clunky combat which makes you prone to taking a lot of hits because the range on Dexter's punch attack is pathetically short. I don't enjoy having to collect the gun weapon every time I enter a new room, it should have been an item you unlock roughly halfway through a level and then you get to keep it until the end of that specific level.

The enemies and hazards have wonky hitboxes that cause you to take damage despite clearing not coming into contact with them, and sometimes you can just get stun-locked into them as they drain your health bar ridiculously fast. Given that this is an isometric platformer, the depth perception on many of the jumps you're asked to make can be hard to tell, and it's especially annoying when you're dealing with the floating life preservers over bottomless pits because for whatever reason Dexter's drop shadow completely disappears when you're above them, making precise platforming even harder to judge!

Then of course, there's the game breaking glitch towards the end where depending on the version you're playing, it's physically impossible to beat the game because the sink that you use the wrench on causes it to disappear from your inventory which locks you into a dead game. It's ridiculous lol!

Even still, there is some fun to be had here and Dexter's lab fans might get enjoyment out of this one, but I wouldn't recommend the game to a casual player who has no attachment to Dexter's Lab.

Reviewed on Jul 18, 2021


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