Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland review — The Rugrats deserve a better adventure

Let me preface this review by stating that whether you play this game single player or co-op makes a huge difference in the experience that you’ll have. My first experience was co-op, and to put it mildly, it wasn’t good. Single player fares much better, though the game is full of retro style cheap hits with annoying knockback and aggravating level design. Still, I believe there is a good game hidden deep within Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland, but it is buried underneath quite a few bugs, including an especially annoying game-breaking bug in co-op, and the frustrating design choices which plague nearly every level of this short retro-inspired adventure. To be fair, I am speaking about a pre-release build, so there is always hope that the bugs are smoothed out before launch, but as of this moment it is hard to recommend this game to any but the most devout retro-loving gamers.

But before we dive into the issues I encountered, let’s start with the good: Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is a shockingly great recreation of the cartoon classic in video game form. The modern graphics are so close to the cartoon that it feels as if you are controlling a lost episode and left quite the first impression. Unfortunately, my awe died down quickly, as the work put into making Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland so closely resemble the cartoon deserves a better game to be attached to. 

Even more surprising is the fact that the entire game, from the title credits on, are all available in an 8-bit mode along with the soundtrack, which makes the entire experience look and sound exactly like an NES game would have 30+ years ago. Both graphic forms, the HD and the 8-Bit, are worth gushing over and show just how much work the developers put into this title and showcase that this game was crafted out of a love of both retro gaming and the original cartoon.

There are three difficulty modes and four playable characters: Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil. Lending a bit of weight to your character selection is the fact that each character boasts their own skills, namely how well they can jump and lift objects. Jumping, in particular, is a valuable trait, as it can help you more easily overcome obstacles by simply ignoring some enemies and tasks. Chuckie, being the tallest of the four, is the best at jumping, while Phil has the best lift. Tommy and Lil are both nearly equal with middle-of-the-road abilities in each skill. That said, Lil has an advantage that the game doesn’t outright acknowledge, which is her ability to glide ala Princess Peach in Mario games. While the stats don’t really matter all too often, the ability to jump high as Chuckie makes him the best character to choose for nearly every level with Lil coming in a close second.

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland has an initial first level that sees you breaking out of your playpen to explore the Pickles’ house, but after that, you can choose any of the remaining levels at your leisure. The goal of each level is to collect the four Reptar coins hidden throughout so you can ultimately unlock the Reptar door back at the Pickles’ house. Each level is surprisingly distinct and has you fighting your way through trees, jungles, ice filled lairs, a spooky attic with a door gimmick which is reminiscent of the ghost houses in Mario games, a dangerous dreamland, and more. The end of each level features a relatively easy boss, though a few do get a bit creative and may take a couple of tries to defeat if you’re not paying attention to their attack patterns. 

Attacking is pretty straight forward, with our baby heroes only being able to jump on an enemy to stun them which then allows them to be picked up and thrown, or to butt stomp them which knocks them off the screen entirely. You have four health points with one being taken away each time you sustain damage, but you can pick up bottles to refill health, or cookies to provide you with an extra life. 

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland can be played both single and co-op, and I highly recommend playing single player until the game is patched. While co-op has advantages, such as being able to revive fallen players, I encountered so many near game breaking bugs during my co-op session that I can’t recommend it. The more erroneous of these bugs actually prevented us from ever completing the game in co-op mode, as it continuously glitched one player into an area where they couldn’t move at all. This occurred during the last level and no amount of restarting the level fixed it. It simply occurred every single time in the same room which was required to progress.

So, I suppose this is a good time to segway into the issues I encountered during my hours with Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland, nearly all of which occurred during co-op. I was frozen in mid-air, I defeated a boss only for the game to never register the defeat and instead kept me stuck in an empty boss battle field forcing me to replay the level, I instantly became encased in ice upon entering a room required to progress, controls often just quit working such as being able to butt stomp or pick up objects, and I was not able to delete saves despite thinking I had as essentially the game allowed me to delete a save but if I didn’t rewrite that save with a new one then during my next play session the original save would still exist. 

But none of those compare to the absolute worst bug I encountered, which occurred during a level that has you continuously going through doors to collect Reptar coins. At one point I went through a door only to be sent to another level entirely – a glitched-out version of the first level of the game – which was unable to be completed due to the grandpa not fully loading. Though to be fair, I have no idea what would have happened if I had progressed since I wasn’t supposed to be in that level anyway. This forced me to restart the entire game once I realized that it wasn’t a mistake on my end – such as missing some obvious objective – but rather a game breaking bug. What’s sad is that even one of the above-mentioned bugs would be unacceptable in most cases, but the fact that so many exist in such a simple game it is amazing that this passed any sort of QA testing and got approved for release. 

EXAMPLE: This is how the grandpa loads in the first level when the game is playing correctly

EXAMPLE: This is what I encountered when the game sent me back to the first level by accident from a different level entirely, forcing me to restart. Note that the grandpa was only visible when I switched to 8-bit mode, but still blocked my way in HD mode. Since he did not fully load, you couldn’t progress. 

I want to point out that I was incredibly excited for this release. I knew it wasn’t going to be the next Baulder’s Gate 3, but I was thrilled that what looked like a well-made platformer with retro NES styling was being released with co-op options so I could play with my wife. To state that I was disappointed is an understatement, and my wife and I both visibly got angrier with the game as we progressed, eventually leading us to continue only out of spite and sheer determination to see the adventure through.

To be fair, as I mentioned previously, most of this frustration and disappointment stemmed from co-op issues, as I was able to complete the game in single player mode with very few bugs. I’m not sure why single player differed so much from co-op, but it just seemed like the game itself wasn’t quite capable of handling two players at once. It still isn’t a great game, but it was a bit more enjoyable once I was able to progress without worrying about the slew of bugs blocking my path.

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