These are two big “no-no"s for games aimed at those who are still chewing with their first set of teeth.
The premise of this game is ripped straight from the movie, which–if you’ve seen it–I’m sure you’ve forgotten by now. The bulk of the game takes place on the rides of Euroraptarland where you eventually have to save a princess (when are you going to get to save a prince in one of these games?). Then you’re off to Paris to stop a wedding and the potential of evil step-motherdom.
Rugrats in Paris is made up of variations on the side scroller and mini-carnival games. The mini-games were the most entertaining aspects. They don’t suffer from the control issues that the side scroller does (more on that below) and there are enough variations on the same theme to keep things interesting. In order to get more amusement park tickets you need shoot passing ninjas, feed hungry monsters, or whack all of the gophers you can. Unfortunately these games lack any real ability to satisfy. They’re a nice diversion—nothing more. The cartridge is really built around the side scrolling sections and that is where the game really disappoints.
The controls are horrible. There’s simply no other word for it. In some instances it is downright impossible to get through a level without taking serious damage. You do not have a shoot button, so your only option is to jump up and over the bad guys. The good news is that most of the bad guys are pretty slow. The bad news is it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. In the spaceship level there were some enemy robots that I couldn’t jump over without getting hurt, and since there isn’t a way to take out the bad guys you just have to deal with the pain. That’s something I just can’t live with. Unavoidable pain and damage is a part of real life–it shouldn’t be a part of Rugrats in Paris.
The only things the game really has going for it are the franchise and the graphics. If you’re a diehard Rugrats fan you won’t too be disappointed I imagine. The graphics are actually pretty nice. It’s no mean feat to construct characters on the GBC that actually look like their cell-drawn counterparts. All of the Rugrats look like Rugrats.
There’s a lot to do on this game (as the manual makes explicitly clear)–it’s just too bad that most kids won’t get to see it. Those of us who play a lot of Game Boy Color games have come to expect a new game with virtually every new kid’s movie. What we can’t and don’t expect is that these games will be any good.
Jason Frank