This game was such a trip. The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout, developed by Kemco for the NES and initially released in Japan on August 3, 1990, is a very odd game. If you'd ask me about the structure of this game after I played AND FINISHED IT, I would just say "I dunno".
The game is easy and frustrating at the same time and it goes on for far longer than it has the right to. It uses Looney Tunes characters as both the protagonist and all antagonists, which does add a certain charm, but it's also probably the only reason why it's relevant enough for me to have put on my 1990 playlist.
More on the game in detail below.
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STORYTELLING
The game starts with a short cutscene with text and stand still images of Bugs Bunny opening a letter. The Bugs Bunny character is celebrating its 50th birthday and his friends are throwing a birthday party for him. Some of the Looney Tunes characters are jealous, so they decide to stand in Bugs Bunny's way as he tries to get to his party. We're talking characters like Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé Le Pew and Sylvester.
Once you beat the game, you get a similar cutscene that has a little surprise in store.
It's about the minimum you'd expect for a game that wants to have any sort of story in it.
GAMEPLAY
You control Bugs Bunny through a variety of different levels in a game that features roughly 20 FPS and is pretty consistent with that. You are armed with a hammer and go through a colorful world filled with a bunch of random assets and bear similarities to Super Mario games in design. You even warp through "pipes", though here these signify the end of a stage most of the time and lead to a boss.
The assets are truly random here. You'll be hit by rocks, walking alarm clocks that explode, lava that shoots up from the ground, some weird moist-looking orange texture that can fly, guys dressed like milk cartons and characters that have a hammer for their heads. At least the boss fights are only against Looney Tunes characters that you'll recognize.
The problem is, there are about 50 stages and that many boss fights throughout the game. I'm exaggerating, but only kind of, and each boss is repeated at least 3 times until it all of a sudden just ends. It's not like levels are creatively designed to warrant this. At points it feels like you are walking through pretty much the same levels over and over again with only slight changes here and there. The boss fights sure are the same, so why are you making the player suffer more by overextending the playtime? Again, it doesn't help that the game runs at a locked 20 FPS.
After each stage you beat, you enter one of two mini games and can play those multiple times if you collected enough carrots. One has a Bingo like card on it and you have to try and match 3 or more stars horizontally/vertically/diagonally. If you do, you get 1Ups. This is no challenge at all and you will find yourself with 50+ 1Ups left by the time you beat the game. Then there is a Whac-A-Mole type mini game as well. Both just become annoying necessities after you've played them a few times.
The 1 Ups makes the completion of this game much easier already, but it's not like the levels are difficult either way. You find plenty of items to regenerate your health (you'll need them because there is a lot of stuff that you can't reliably dodge in this game) and platforming barely offers any challenges. Your only enemy there is gravity.
There are barely any features in this game and in today's day and age, we've seen plenty of these licensed game that are only made as cash-grabs, as there really wasn't much effort put into this one.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design is OK and the soundtrack is as well. The music is not terrible to listen to, it's very average as far as OSTs from this time go, but the repetitive and at parts non-sensical level design might cause anxiety whenever you listen to it after your time with this game is over.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The game is certainly colorful and Looney Tunes characters add to the charm of this game, but the game starts looking pretty basic the further you get into it, there isn't much creativity here and the fact that a bunch of random assets are thrown together here does reduce the aesthetical quality of the game in my opinion.
ATMOSPHERE
The game doesn't really do anything special graphically, it has a very average soundtrack and to add to this, your eyes are strained from looking at this 20 FPS, blurry, headache-inducing presentation.
CONTENT
It took me about 3 hours to beat the game and it should take you as much as well. Unlike some other platformers that take much longer for a first time player - but probably less than 3 hours for experienced players - 3 hours is all The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout has to offer. I rarely died, the game has barely any features that you could miss out on and it's a pretty straightforward experience. And even with a game that is 3 hours long, I was asking for it to be over very early on into my playthrough due to the sheer repetitiveness of it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Terrible. I don't really think much thought went into creating a cohesive structure at any point. They simply seem to have created a start and end point for a level, throw together a bunch of random assets in between and added about half a dozen rotating bosses at the end of each stage. Very poor.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
There is nothing innovative about this one. They seem to have copied a bunch of platformers that were more popular without understanding what makes platformers popular.
REPLAYABILITY
You can try to beat your high score, sure, but I doubt that anyone who starts playing this today would want to replay it.
PLAYABILITY
It works from start to finish, but playing it at 20 FPS or so throughout, if even that, really hurts the experience (replace 'experience' with 'eyes').
OVERALL
This is definitely in the running for Worst Game of 1990. It's the only game I've played so far that performed this poorly. If not for the Looney Tunes setting, this game wouldn't have anything to offer apart from boring, repetitive and simple platforming.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
Couldn't find any thoughts, just two notices of the game's release in Electronic Gaming Monthly and Nintendo Power magazines.
The game is easy and frustrating at the same time and it goes on for far longer than it has the right to. It uses Looney Tunes characters as both the protagonist and all antagonists, which does add a certain charm, but it's also probably the only reason why it's relevant enough for me to have put on my 1990 playlist.
More on the game in detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
The game starts with a short cutscene with text and stand still images of Bugs Bunny opening a letter. The Bugs Bunny character is celebrating its 50th birthday and his friends are throwing a birthday party for him. Some of the Looney Tunes characters are jealous, so they decide to stand in Bugs Bunny's way as he tries to get to his party. We're talking characters like Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé Le Pew and Sylvester.
Once you beat the game, you get a similar cutscene that has a little surprise in store.
It's about the minimum you'd expect for a game that wants to have any sort of story in it.
GAMEPLAY
You control Bugs Bunny through a variety of different levels in a game that features roughly 20 FPS and is pretty consistent with that. You are armed with a hammer and go through a colorful world filled with a bunch of random assets and bear similarities to Super Mario games in design. You even warp through "pipes", though here these signify the end of a stage most of the time and lead to a boss.
The assets are truly random here. You'll be hit by rocks, walking alarm clocks that explode, lava that shoots up from the ground, some weird moist-looking orange texture that can fly, guys dressed like milk cartons and characters that have a hammer for their heads. At least the boss fights are only against Looney Tunes characters that you'll recognize.
The problem is, there are about 50 stages and that many boss fights throughout the game. I'm exaggerating, but only kind of, and each boss is repeated at least 3 times until it all of a sudden just ends. It's not like levels are creatively designed to warrant this. At points it feels like you are walking through pretty much the same levels over and over again with only slight changes here and there. The boss fights sure are the same, so why are you making the player suffer more by overextending the playtime? Again, it doesn't help that the game runs at a locked 20 FPS.
After each stage you beat, you enter one of two mini games and can play those multiple times if you collected enough carrots. One has a Bingo like card on it and you have to try and match 3 or more stars horizontally/vertically/diagonally. If you do, you get 1Ups. This is no challenge at all and you will find yourself with 50+ 1Ups left by the time you beat the game. Then there is a Whac-A-Mole type mini game as well. Both just become annoying necessities after you've played them a few times.
The 1 Ups makes the completion of this game much easier already, but it's not like the levels are difficult either way. You find plenty of items to regenerate your health (you'll need them because there is a lot of stuff that you can't reliably dodge in this game) and platforming barely offers any challenges. Your only enemy there is gravity.
There are barely any features in this game and in today's day and age, we've seen plenty of these licensed game that are only made as cash-grabs, as there really wasn't much effort put into this one.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design is OK and the soundtrack is as well. The music is not terrible to listen to, it's very average as far as OSTs from this time go, but the repetitive and at parts non-sensical level design might cause anxiety whenever you listen to it after your time with this game is over.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The game is certainly colorful and Looney Tunes characters add to the charm of this game, but the game starts looking pretty basic the further you get into it, there isn't much creativity here and the fact that a bunch of random assets are thrown together here does reduce the aesthetical quality of the game in my opinion.
ATMOSPHERE
The game doesn't really do anything special graphically, it has a very average soundtrack and to add to this, your eyes are strained from looking at this 20 FPS, blurry, headache-inducing presentation.
CONTENT
It took me about 3 hours to beat the game and it should take you as much as well. Unlike some other platformers that take much longer for a first time player - but probably less than 3 hours for experienced players - 3 hours is all The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout has to offer. I rarely died, the game has barely any features that you could miss out on and it's a pretty straightforward experience. And even with a game that is 3 hours long, I was asking for it to be over very early on into my playthrough due to the sheer repetitiveness of it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Terrible. I don't really think much thought went into creating a cohesive structure at any point. They simply seem to have created a start and end point for a level, throw together a bunch of random assets in between and added about half a dozen rotating bosses at the end of each stage. Very poor.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
There is nothing innovative about this one. They seem to have copied a bunch of platformers that were more popular without understanding what makes platformers popular.
REPLAYABILITY
You can try to beat your high score, sure, but I doubt that anyone who starts playing this today would want to replay it.
PLAYABILITY
It works from start to finish, but playing it at 20 FPS or so throughout, if even that, really hurts the experience (replace 'experience' with 'eyes').
OVERALL
This is definitely in the running for Worst Game of 1990. It's the only game I've played so far that performed this poorly. If not for the Looney Tunes setting, this game wouldn't have anything to offer apart from boring, repetitive and simple platforming.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
Couldn't find any thoughts, just two notices of the game's release in Electronic Gaming Monthly and Nintendo Power magazines.