Tiny Toon Adventures Buster Busts Loose (SNES) Review

Platformers on the SNES were a dime a dozen. Okay let’s make a character, allow it to move, jump and give it a gimmick to attack and boom, there’s a franchise.

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In the case of Looney Tunes, they already had a ton of characters to choose from. The Tiny Toon Adventures cartoons were being played everywhere in the early to mid 90’s so why not try and cash in on the craze of Super Nintendo platformers that were performing so well at the same time?

I have to admit, I wasn’t a huge fan of the Cartoons when they were first being aired but did get the Super Nintendo game back in Christmas of 1993 and of course whatever you had back then you had to make the most of, Even if it was a crappy game.

Tiny Toon Adventures Buster Busts loose is well you guess it, a platformer game released on the Super Nintendo back in 1993. The game plays out in the six stages of a scene from one of the cartoons. Acme Loonivesrity is the opening level and Babs and buster here are pretty cringeworthy in the opening dialog.

The main mechanic you can use is the run meter that you can use by pressing either L or R on the controller. This not only lets you run faster or slide but you can use it to climb up walls. A lot of the stages force you to climb up walls or use it to find hidden secrets around for lives or power ups to your life meter. Just be careful to make sure to let the meter fill back up before trying to run up a large wall or you might run out and fall to your death.

You can jump or drop kick enemies. The drop kick is a bit awkward to use since the animation will actually jump before he kicks and you can possibly miss an enemy while in the air. I actually would have preferred if you were just able to jump on enemies heads like in Super Mario World.

The levels are as generic as it gets, you have the wild west movie scene, the spooky mansion, The sky level and the clear star wars ripoff.

Babs even is wearing her hair like Princess Leia in the opening dialogue. Seeing the enemies as Storm Troopers was a laugh to see.

The one stand out stage is the football level. This isn’t actually a platforming level but a game of rock, paper, scissors where you have to either slide under an opponent or jump over them. Guess wrong and you take a down. You have to make it into the end zone by either running or passing. I found the passing to be a bit more difficult since there was the defenses you had to worry about juggling the ball in the air before it hits the ground.

Apart from the basic platforming, there are some extras to keep you busy in some of the stages like the jump rope mini-game or finding keys. Check out these cool Mode 7 effects where the laser comes at you and you have to hide to avoid the blast.

There’s also 5 different mini games that keep you occupied between each of the stages to take a break from the platforming levels.

One where Furrball is playing squash and every time you hit the wall 15 times you get a one up.

Here you’re moving the tiles below Hungry Boy Hampton around in order to have him pick up apples to gain a life.

One where Babs is trying to find her friends in a maze almost like the perspective of Zombies Ate My Neighbors.

Then there’s a bingo one that’s totally random but hey you’ll get a couple one ups in the process.

This one you basically have to guess if your character weighs more than what the computer chose.

There are some bosses but none of them really were at all very difficult. Let’s take this one here where you’re feeding dizzy devil a fine assortment of burgers, donuts, or Sundays to keep him full just to have him pass out and leave you alone.

The music does get a bit repetitive since it’s based on a cartoon.

It’s obviously aimed towards kids since it’s a looney tunes game but it’s still a great all around fun game. It even says Just don't get ice cream in the Super NES, please. In the freaking instruction manual for crying out loud. I can just picture someone eating a giant ice cream cone using their Super Nintendo as a plate and blob there goes the ice cream all inside the cartridge slot.

There’s also a password system that lets you skip through the stages and pick up where you left off. One really cool password is if you’re bored of the main games you can pick through any of the bonus levels which comes in really handy.

There’s a difficulty mode that does take out certain stages of the game in order to help you progress. Keep that in mind if you decide to put the game on easy.

The only real downfall to Buster Busts Loose on the Super Nintendo is the difficulty curve. If you’ve got children who like the Looney Tunes series or are playing it for nostalgia like I am then give Buster busts loose a try.