Is Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure still good?
Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure is a side-scrolling platformer developed by
Konami and released on the Sega Genesis and Mega Drive back in 1993.
As with many of Konami's offerings like Castlevania Bloodlines, Contra Hard Corps, and The Hyperstone
Heist, Buster's Hidden Treasure is not a simple port of a previously released Super Nintendo
game, but a brand new adventure released exclusively for the Sega hardware.
And like those previously mentioned Konami classics, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden
Treasure was met with positive reviews.
Mean Machines Magazine gave the game a 9.2 out of 10 noting, "One of the best examples
of a platform game on the Mega Drive and certainly the finest example of the machine's abilities.
Tiny Toons cannot fail to please!"
So, is Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure still this good?
Let's take a look.
The game opens with some cut-scenes providing a backstory to the game world and the antagonists.
Basically, a treasure map is discovered and Buster Bunny wants to go find the treasure.
Montana Max is having none of it, enlisting the help of Gene Splicer, kidnapping Babs
Bunny, and enslaving Buster's friends in addition to stealing the treasure map.
It's a bit excessive for sure, but whatever.
It's now up to Buster Bunny to rescue his friends, as well find the hidden treasure.
With the plot out of the way, we arrive at the first world, a grassy area.
These early stages do a good job getting the player up to speed with the gameplay mechanics.
As expected, Buster Bunny can run and jump, and damages enemies by hitting them from above.
About the only unique element is the sliding kick which can only be performed after reaching
full speed.
While bopping enemies, avoiding hazards, and doing platformer things, the player can collect
carrots, with 50 rewarding a special attack.
This attack is as a screen clearing bomb and if you choose not utilize the extra attack;
you'll receive bonus points at the end of the level.
In addition to carrots, there are bells increasing Buster's life bar, up to a maximum of 5, extra
lives, extra health, and temporary invincibility.
Needless to say, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure plays it safe with the game
mechanics and power-ups.
On the flip side, the controls take some getting used to.
First, Buster has some slow momentum and it takes a while to get up to full speed.
But the levels rarely call for Buster to be at full speed, resulting in a lot of tapping
on the D-Pad to maintain a medium speed.
And as Buster is rarely moving at top speed, the glide kick is rarely accessible to the
player, and ends up feeling a bit pointless.
Moving on, let's talk about the jumping.
Like the momentum, this feels very non-standard.
The momentum is completely separate from the walking, and Buster can perform a spectacular
leap even when standing still.
The change in speed from a slow walk, to a brisk jump, can be weird, but is predictable.
Finally, if the player lets go of the jump button mid-air, Buster will abruptly drop
straight down.
This can be good for landing on a small platform or climbing stairs, but if the player is still
pressing left or right on the d-pad once landed, Buster immediately regains his momentum when
hitting the ground.
The fact the momentum is completely different while walking and running, compared to while
in the air, makes for a steep learning curve.
The controls are responsive and predictable for sure, but Tiny Toon Adventures lacks the
smoothness and fluidity found in AAA titles of the time.
With the controls out of the way, let's talk about the first few levels.
The level structure is fairly standard, with Buster making his way from left to right to
find the level's exit.
Along the way there might be boulders to push to reach higher platforms, secret areas with
extra lives, and springs to bounce off.
While somewhat vanilla, I do love the how the color palette changes with each passing
level, giving the illusion of time passing, and helping the levels feel somewhat unique.
After beating the first world of levels we arrive at a boss fight.
The goal and structure of each boss encounter is effectively the same.
Gene Splicer has a mind control device on one of Buster's friends, and that friend
is used to hinder Buster with obstacles.
Meanwhile, Buster must brain Gene Splicer to scare him off and free said character.
The first fight is fun enough, and dodging Dizzy Devil while hitting Gene splicer on
the vertically oriented stage is straightforward.
After this, Buster is off to the mountain world.
The objectives and layouts remain much the same here, but the difficulty is increased.
Sometimes this is fair, with some tricky platform jumping, and other times slightly less fair.
Landing on a spike results in instant-death as expected, and they will occasionally catch
you off guard.
Enemy placement is a touch off sometimes too, with an enemy appearing out of nowhere as
you move up the screen or worse yet, the enemy's projectiles.
None of this is too frequent, but noteworthy nonetheless.
Moving on, the maze level is pretty cool.
Rather than going from left the right, the player needs to maneuver through a bunch of
hollowed out trees to find the exit.
If you've got a good understanding of the jumping, and can follow the carrots used as
a sort of hint system, this provides a decent challenge in terms of following clues and
as well as challenging the player's dexterity.
All in all, this is a great level and a nice change of pace compared to what's been presented
thus far.
This leads to another boss encounter.
Here Gene Splicer will appear in one of 4 boxes as they spin along a wheel.
Thankfully, the box will briefly flash before Gene Splicer appears giving the player a clue
as to where to attack next.
Of course this all must be accomplished while avoiding bombs being tossed at Buster.
Still, it's another fun test of the player's reflexes, while continuing to reinforce the
jumping mechanics.
From here, Buster makes his way through some caves.
This is where the final move is introduced to the player, the wall jump.
At some point during the first cave level, the player will inevitably end up in a pit,
and be forced to wall jump out.
From here on out, the maneuver will be invaluable for defeating bosses, finding secrets, and
clearing tough obstacles.
Buster can even crawl, and scenarios are presented where using the screen clearing bomb can actually
be helpful, which is nice.
The slide kick however, remains useless.
It is also during this stretch we are introduced to a dreaded water level.
Here, Tiny Toon Adventures goes the Mario route, where you have to rapidly press the
jump button to ascend, and stop pressing the jump button to descend.
Unlike Mario, Buster is helpless in the water and has no way to attack foes.
On top of this, he is far too high on the screen when moving upwards, creating a lot
of unnecessary screen crunch, resulting in many cheap hits.
It's a terrible level and not much fun to play.
Moving along we arrive at boss number 3.
Simply avoid the falling rocks and attack when Gene Splicer swoops down.
Next are some volcano levels.
This represents the halfway point in the adventure, and the increasing difficulty is hard not
to notice.
There are plenty of lava pits with small platforms, though the lava only does damage rather than
kill the player and I appreciate the restraint.
The second lava level is absolutely brutal however.
The entire stage is a massive platforming challenge upwards while the lava chases from
below.
At this point, mastery of the jumping mechanics is a must, and quick thinking is required
to skip unnecessary platforms.
A wall jump or two are also needed.
For my money, this is easily the hardest segment in the entire game, but I am thankful this
is the entire level, meaning if you die you can quickly go for another attempt.
Curiously, after the toughest platforming in the game, is the easiest boss in the game.
I guess I should now point out Buster can jump downwards, but avoiding Plucky Duck and
jumping on Gene Splicer who is always in the middle of the stage is an absolute breeze.
Next is more water.
I will say this stage is sort of cool having the player navigate to the bottom of the water
pool and fall down to the next pool, but the level design is still pretty thoughtless.
The blind jumps are a real crapshoot, and landing on enemies or death spikes is all
but guaranteed.
It does lead to a high point however, the ship level.
This is another maze-like level, sort of like the tree found in world 2.
The path forward isn't too obvious, but not confusing either, creating a fun environment
to explore.
You'll have to move barrels into position, continue to hone your wall jumping skills,
and hop across small platforms to be successful.
The change in scenery is awesome and a high point of the adventure.
This leads to Buster finding the hidden treasure, but Montana Max is hot on his heels and a
boss encounter ensues.
The goal here is to be patient and use the wall jump to land attacks higher than Buster's
normal vertical limits allow him to hit.
It also foreshadows the final boss encounter, which is kind of cool.
With Montano Max temporarily dispatched, Buster makes his way to the snow levels.
These are not ice levels however.
Instead of platforms being slippery, they slow down Buster's initial momentum.
I kind of like this if I'm honest, and I'm glad the developers decided to go the nontraditional
route.
As a whole, the snow world is pretty solid, presenting a nice platforming challenge for
the player.
Platforms will disappear, others will move, and overall these are enjoyable.
The game forces the player to utilize the bounce attack on the waves of snowmen.
If you continue to hold the jump button after bopping an enemy, Buster will bounce high
into the air, allowing the player to chain a bunch of attacks together.
From here it's another boss fight.
This is probably the weakest of the bunch, but by no means terrible.
Gene Splicer will drop bombs which are then sucked up in a vacuum, along with the player.
It can be easy to get stuck in a pattern of constant hits and quickly drain your life
bar.
On the flip side, it's also easy to get into a rhythm of quick hits on the boss and
it can be over quickly when you get it right.
Still, there is a level of sloppiness here which hasn't been showcased in the previous
encounters.
This brings us to the final world, which is a factory of sorts.
For me, these are some of the strongest levels found in the entire adventure.
It plays to the strengths of the game, with precision jumping, pattern recognition, and
accuracy being keys to success.
Not only do the levels fit perfectly within Buster's move set, they also show a real
knack for enemy placement.
Their movements compliment the world around them.
Some can be avoided altogether, rewarding a player who has taken the time to assess
the situation.
Others can be used as a quick shortcut or makeshift platform.
Others still will require a well-timed strike to take them down while avoiding a dangerous
hazard.
From beginning to end, these are an absolute treat to play through and it's nice to see
Konami finally showing off some of their game designing prowess.
Of course this leads us to the final two bosses.
The first is against Elmira.
She basically mirrors the player's movements, and if the player fumbles at all, Elmira will
snag Buster resulting in instant death.
Unless you have this level memorized, you'll be forced to jump backwards and forwards to
buy yourself time and avoid running into walls, which will kill your momentum.
While it's not immediately obvious you can just jump over Elmira, once you master the
mechanic, it is not an impossible task.
This leads us to the real final boss, a large mech piloted by Montana Max.
Sadly, this boss is a joke.
After dodging the laser attack, you can easily get into a pattern of successive attacks without
the boss recuperating and going on the offensive.
The second wave of attacks features an exposed Montana Max, but the pattern remains the same.
It's sort of letdown if I'm honest, but I guess it could be worse.
In any case, the final cutscene shows Babs being rescued and the hidden treasure being
used to turn the island to an amusement park.
Then of course, the credits roll.
From a technical standpoint, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure is quite impressive.
The graphics are amazing.
Like most of the Japanese developed titles of the time, you'd be hard-pressed to tell
the Genesis has any sort of color limitations.
Each world is vibrant with a ton of color, nice gradients, and color palettes rarely
seen on the Genesis hardware.
However, I wouldn't say Tiny Toon Adventures pushes the system's limits like later Konami
games.
Other than some line scrolling effects in the background of select stages, and occasionally
more than a single layer of parallax scrolling, everything found here is very basic.
There are no rotation effects, no palette swapping water effects, no reflection effects,
nothing.
Even the water is just checkerboard dithering, which doesn't look the best in 2017.
Still, enemies tend to be large and detailed, I didn't notice any slowdown or flicker, and
as a whole, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure is a beautiful game.
This level of polish is carried over into the audio.
For every developer that struggled with the FM sound chip in the Genesis, there was another
who could make the Yamaha sing.
Konami was the latter.
Tiny Toon Adventures sounds absolutely stunning.
The synthesized instruments sound rich and warm, and are blended beautifully with more
industrial sounds, mixing in classic orchestrated cartoon scores with beats you'd find in
a circus to create some insanely pleasing music.
The sound effects are top notch as well, with a light bouncing sound playing each time Buster
jumps, and a light thunk when bopping enemies.
Overall, Tiny Toon Adventures does an awesome job playing homage to a 90's cartoon while
also showing the Genesis was more than capable of delivering a fantastic soundtrack in the
hands of talented engineers and composers.
So with all of that out of the way we arrive back to the question asked at the beginning
of the video, is Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure still good?
Let me start by saying I came into this game with low expectations.
I purchased this game blind a few months ago for $5.
I knew nothing about, and assumed it was mediocre licensed game.
I mean, there must be a reason I never see this game talked about in Genesis circles
or covered by mainstream YouTubers.
From that mindset, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure is kind of amazing.
With gorgeous graphics, a wonderful soundtrack, responsive, though strange, controls, and
a massive amount of levels to platform through, packed with above average boss encounters
and offering a decent challenge to boot.
Tiny Toon Adventures is an easy game to like.
However, it wouldn't be fair of me to declare this a fantastic title simply because it surpassed
my low expectations.
So for starters, let's get the negatives out of the way.
At times, especially early on, the game feels derivative.
The map screen seems ripped straight from a Mario title, with music and sound effects
that sound awfully... similar.
Even the brick patterns on floating platforms look like they belong in a Mario game, and
there is no reason for them to look like this.
The developers didn't stop there either.
The way Buster's legs spin when he reaches maximum velocity looks a little too similar
to the blue blur.
And Buster isn't destructible when moving at full speed, making it pointless.
It feels like the developers were simply showing off without thinking about Buster's interaction
with the environment.
Speaking of showing off, Buster will trip when walking over a can, or come to a stop
when walking over a rake.
This cute gimmick is used effectively exactly once.
After racing over this gap, the rake stops his progress.
It's a perfect place to use this gag as it resets the game's speed so Buster can resume
platforming.
But as best as I can tell, this is the only instance of this kind of thought.
There are some technical fumbles well.
The hit detection is very unforgiving.
Even on subsequent playthroughs, I would occasionally take damage when hitting an enemy.
It seems the game engine is very finicky when it comes to dishing out damage, and if you
don't land exactly on top of something, you get punished.
I will say I did adjust to the hit detection quirks, but like the controls, there is a
learning curve.
Finally, the water levels all kind of suck.
I'm not a big fan of these in general and Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure
does little to change my mind.
It's difficult to navigate small corridors without taking damage, and the vertical aspect
of these levels is aggravating.
There is nothing worse than swimming up, because you have to, only to hit an obstacle, because
you have to jump up, and not simply swim up at slower speeds.
It feels dated and ill-conceived.
But for all of the design oddities, there is a lot of competence lurking within.
While the controls have a learning curve, they are precise and predictable.
Rarely will you slide off a platform or miss a jump.
Starting, stopping, and landing all feel great making the platforming challenges presented,
a ton of fun.
Even better are little design touches.
The forest areas become denser with each passing level.
There is even a rocket which launches Buster into space.
Tougher levels tend to be shorter; meaning the feeling of accomplishment is delivered
before a feeling of frustration.
And yeah, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure packs in a ton of challenge.
Some of this comes from a complete lack of checkpoints.
If you die, you start the level back at the beginning.
The tough challenge combined with shorter levels and start back actually does remind
me of more recent games like Super Meat Boy or N+.
This feeling is reinforced with unlimited continues.
If you lose all of your lives, you start back at the level you left off, which is awesome.
There is even a password system, so you resume right where you left off if you need to shut
the game down.
The only exception is the final world.
If you get a game over anywhere in this world, you start back at the first factory level.
I also appreciate the lack of widgets and whatsits to collect.
Instead, the carrots serve as a guide through the levels.
They are completely optional, and the player is not punished for skipping them.
Now this is definitely more of a personal preference, and some gamers find the collecting
aspect of platformers appealing, but I personally prefer the game's laser focus on platforming.
And in this regard, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure excels.
More specifically, the game is never cheap.
There are virtually no blind jumps to be found, the path forward is obvious, even though it
might not be easy, and enemy placement is almost always thoughtful instead of surprising.
The only thing limiting success to the game's conclusion is a player's skill and perseverance.
No challenge presented is impossible or broken, and beating many of the game's later stages
offers a nice feeling of satisfaction, rather than relief.
That feeling of satisfaction means I'll want to revisit this title in the future, perfecting
runs through levels, as well as finding more secret areas.
So yeah, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure is still pretty great.
While the limited moveset, lack of collectables, and just a single playable character might
have been an odd choice back in 1993, it does allow the player to learn the strange controls,
and become a master of them just as mastery of them is needed.
More impressive are the lack of problems.
Outside of the water levels, there are virtually no issues with bad enemies, annoying gimmicks,
or trial-and-error gameplay.
It's absolutely on par with some of the best 3rd party platformers of the era, including
the games from Travellers Tales and Virgin Games.
The difficulty curve is perfect and the game is rather lengthy clocking in at around 2
hours.
Throw in some excellent graphics and a superb soundtrack, and Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's
Hidden Treasure is one of the better Genesis titles I've played in a long, long time.
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