Rugrats Adventures in Gameland Review (Steam)

by Jim Smale · Published September 12, 2024 · Updated September 13, 2024

Rugrats Adventures in Gameland Review, When Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil see a commercial for the new Reptar video game, they pretend that they’re in a video game of their own! Toggle between beautiful 8-bit and HD art, select your favorite baby, and play solo or co-op in Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland, a neo-retro platformer.

Rugrats Adventures in Gameland Review Pros:

Classic cartoon graphics.
863.4MB download size.
Platinum trophy.
3 save slots.
8-bit CRT filter.
Three game difficulties – Newborn, Baby, and Big kid. This affects swaps, health, and respawns.
Four playable characters – Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil. Each has its own unique stats for a jump and a lift.
The game uses classic music and a soundtrack.
Platformer gameplay.
Reptar coins are hidden around and you find these to put into the Reptar door.
2D game world with 3D backdrops.
Cookies replenish health and are an extra life, again they can be found in the levels.
Milk bottles give health.
The health bar system is represented as a milk bottle.
Screwdrivers can be found and the open doors.
Big boss fights.
At any time you can bring up a menu to change border art, music, and graphics.
The game has HD and 8-bit graphics. As said above you can change at will in the menu.
Classic music and 8-bit Chiptune music choices can again be changed at will in the menu.
Attacks – you take out enemies by jumping on them, you can butt stomp enemies to take them out completely. Jumping on them leaves them stunned and you can then pick them up and throw them.
Find blocks and throw those as weapons.
Easy to learn controls.
The cutscenes are a mix of animation and stills with speech bubbles.
World map level select.
You can play the levels in any order.
Drop in and out of local multiplayer.
The levels are big enough that you can explore them.
When carrying a block or enemy you can throw it left, right, and up.
You can jump as you climb up ropes and ladders.
Each level ends with a boss fight.
Depending on your difficulty you can swap between characters each with their own health bars and lives.
Each level has four Reptar coins.
You can replay levels.

Rugrats Adventures in Gameland Review Cons:

No in-game tutorials at all, the game just starts.
It’s really easy to accidentally butt-stomp instead of normal jumps.
You cannot remap the controls.
No voice acting at all.
You don’t get good feedback on boss hits.
Never sure when you hit a checkpoint.
When you enter the boss area you are locked in and cannot go back even when respawning.
The game doesn’t show you the controls.
They don’t tell you that each character has a unique thing, so Lil can float, Chuckky jumps higher, etc.
A lot of the character stuff is just reskinned Mario characters.
The level designs are not good, frustrating even with over-the-top knockbacks and how easily you can fall down literal screens of level.
It’s a very short game.
Once you’ve seen the levels you have little desire to go back and even more so on higher difficulties.
No online multiplayer.
You don’t really have any settings.
Every level has either the same music or music that sounds exactly the same.

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