Ahhh, Animaniacs. I remember these guys! I spent a good portion of my childhood sat in front of the TV, watching their wacky show. My sister and I even had the old Konami game of their show for the oldschool Gameboy... Neither of us ever managed to get past the first level (or was it the first world? I can't remember...) in it, but it sure didn't keep us from trying!
Well, I regret to inform that, in playing this game, I had many flashbacks to that old Konami game. Despite putting the difficulty on Easy, and despite this game supposedly being designed for ages 3 and up (I imagine there's got to have been quite a few toddlers who've gotten frustrated with the darn thing and thrown their DSes across the room in anger upon hitting the inevitable "I CAN'T DO IT!!" point)... I wasn't able to get past the second level. (Then again, at 1 in the morning, it's easy to get frustrated over stupid stuff and give up too easily. I'll give it another go in the morning. Doubt it'll change my verdict on this game much, though.)
My initial reaction upon turning the game on was that the graphics didn't strike me as particularly fetching, and the music left a lot to be desired. (That said, you gotta appreciate a good digitized comedic accordion, even if merely for the fact that I can't think of anyone else who's used one in a video game. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) These things can easily be lived with and ignored, though. What I'm about to touch upon next though may just be a personal pet peeve, but it was an absolute fatal flaw in the game for me.
The font used for the text in the game is absolutely hideous, and nearly unreadable. I think they were trying to come up with a font that looks appealing to kids and looks somewhat like childish handwriting, but through the eyes of an adult, it just looks sloppy and amateur. I asked the resident 10-year-old of our household what her thoughts on it were, and she said: "It looks stupid." (Out of the mouths of babes.) Let's put it this way: This font makes Comic Sans look like the Mona Lisa of (silly) fonts by comparison. Trying to speed read this font is no easy task; half the letters have a backwards tilt to them, and half don't. (It's a dyslexic's nightmare.) Add on top of this that the game only allows you two lines of dialogue at a time, and it's just a mess.
Crappy fonts aside, the storyline itself is also weak. I'm fairly sure that all the Animaniacs video games' plots are always recycled. They're all more or less the same thing. Make your way through film lots while making films. -yawn- Is it over yet? Not to mention, the dialogue tries FAR too hard to be funny...and still falls flat. These writers didn't do justice to the original show in the least.
The directions for how to play each level are confusing. You're basically left on your own to find where the director is camped out in each level (but watch out, he's usually in about 5 places at once) and gives you tips on how to complete the mission. Now you have an even smaller space to try and read your text in, and still in that jacked up font. Not fun. Not fun at all. The hints they give you are fairly vague as well. You're left to mostly figure things out on your own - which unfortunately, in this game, is not too easy.
Your remaining time per level is not measured in minutes or second, but rather, in how many remaining film reels you have left in which to complete your scene. By collecting additional film reels, you get more time. Makes sense enough. These film reels don't last very long each though, so you have to keep finding more just to continue the level. This annoys me, because I'd rather have one set amount of time from beginning to end and know what I have to work with. But, as the entire game is basically played out as though your character is in a movie, they had to make it all movie-themed.
Along with this movie theme for the game, along the bottom edge of the screen (both of your screen, and of the "movie" screen) are a row of movie theatre seats, along with the silhouettes of several viewers. The interact with your "film" to an extent; pointing to the screen, laughing, applauding, etc. I'm not entirely certain if they serve a real purpose or not or if they're just there as a distraction, but it's a little bit interesting to note, anyway. However, the way they're drawn reminds me of the old episodes of MST3K I used to watch. Which is great for nostalgia value, but...
Aiming projectiles in this game is NOT an easy task. I thought that maybe it was just me at first, being accustomed to the old school, 2-D video game worlds, and not being used to moving around and aiming in 3-D. Apparently, this is not so much the case. The aiming of the projectiles is so touchy that you might as well have cross hairs to help you aim, because if you're a hair off, you miss. And with the movements being as touchy as they are in this game, it makes accuracy quite difficult. And, honestly - who throws apples as a weapon? (Although, to defeat the boss at the end of the first level, you have to throw dog bones at him. He is a pirate. Don't ask me how this even feasibly logically makes sense.)
The game also apparently does not have a save game function. Yes, folks, even in the days of the DS, there are still some games without a save feature. Instead, do you remember how in oldschool games, you used to get codes when you finished a level that you'd have to type in if you wanted to skip ahead to your spot again if you lost the game? How long has it been since you've seen one of those? ...That's what I thought. And this game isn't that old. What the hell? Not only that, but they have their own way of doing passwords. Their passwords do not consist of letters, numbers, colored balls, nor anything else of the sort. No, this game uses the actual characters of the game as the password characters. For example, the password for the first level (see? Reading this blog also wins you hints, here and there! ;)) goes: Dot-Yakko-Brain-Wakko-Pinky. It's definitely a different way of going about it, and you can't possibly accuse the game developers of ripping that off from another game.
Overall, the game provides little to know excitement while playing. For a game that was designed with kids in mind, it shouldn't be this complicated. At all. It's more confusing and frustrating than anything, and this is coming from an adult point of view. Where is the fun in this? I really found none. Playing this game felt like a chore.
I give this game a rating of 3 1/2 Animaniacs. (And that half is purely for using the digitized accordion.)
Edit: I tried again the following day, just to see if being fully awake would make any real difference in the playability of this game. Apparently not!
