Sometimes, when you think of a franchise from your childhood you remember it fondly based on the emotions you felt while watching it, the memories connected to it, or the continued impact that it had on your life while growing up. If you were born in the late 80s or early 90s, then you will most likely remember the Nickelodeon cartoon Rugrats. Rugrats‘ popularity would result in 172 episodes, 2 major movies, a spin-off show “All Grown Up”, and multiple games. Twenty years after the main series ended, a new Rugrats game is set to be released. This month, Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is set to release globally.

Developer: The MIX Games & Wallride
Publisher: The MIX Games
Platforms: PC (Steam), NES, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch, and Xbox Series X
Release Date: September 10th, 2024
Players: 2
Price: Base: $24.99 USD

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland reunites gamers with their favorite babies in a game that is meant to be a love letter to the original series. The game revolves around the original four Rugrats: Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil as they explore around the house trying to find enough monies to buy the new Reptar game.

This exploration reunites fans with some fan-favorite bad guys and themes: explore the attic, fridge, and even the sandbox to find the coins you need to play the new awesome Reptar level. The game features six levels that players can explore and reconnect with the franchise.

Conceptually, Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is solid, use one or two of the four babies to explore levels, defeat enemies, find milk and cookies, and gather Reptar coins within each level. The last level is only unlocked by the player getting enough Reptar coins to unlock the final level.

The game features three difficulties: Newborn, Baby, and Big Kid. Depending on the difficulty, players can switch between they four babies to get increased jumping power or ground-slamming capability.

The Newborn difficulty grants the player unlimited respawns. Baby allows the players to switch between babies freely; meanwhile, Big Kid prohibits players from swapping and must defeat the level the old-fashioned way, by getting good.

In each level, babies can revive one another by cheering each other up and splitting a portion of their health. On Newborn, the baby is revived to full health; players in this mode can also choose to change frames to revive their ally.

Players can also revive themselves if they found a cookie in the level. The cookie can be a game save or breaker depending on if the player gets stuck in a respawn death loop.

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland follows the old-school platforming style of gaming. Babies with higher jump stats can jump higher while the slammers hit harder. Players can pick each other up and use that as leverage to get higher or progress to the next section. 

While Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland has fun gameplay there are quite a few issues that make the experience less than stellar. The game features a ton of bugs that can range from annoying to game breaking.

While playing, the player can get stuck in an infinite loop of freefalling that will cause you to lose all your health. There can be issues when trying to grab items where they won’t grab properly or get released too soon.

The biggest game-breaking bugs caused the player to be unable to progress. The first issue we encountered was a bug causing a level property not to load. The next and most reoccurring issue we encountered was a character getting stuck in the level and being unable to move.

Going back to a previous frame would bring them back but if you tried to progress, then it would break yet again. In order to get around this, we would run the level solo until getting past the bugged spot and then load in player 2. The third major issue we encountered was the inability to switch babies, this occurred in both the newborn and baby difficulty modes. 

Although these aspects were not game-breaking, they were still annoying. Even on the lower difficulties enemies would respawn immediately. In fact, there was very little change in difficulty between the modes, only the respawn capabilities changed for the player. The next complaint is the size of the game.

For $40, you would expect that the game would have a decent amount of gameplay, sadly even if you count the 8-bit and modern graphics together, that would only be twelve levels.

That limited amount of levels makes the game feel drastically overpriced when you compare it to other platforming games, let alone indie games. The final complaint we have is that there is no menu button to get you back to the main screen, and there are limited accessibility options. 

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland has two different graphics styles that the player can enjoy. Players can switch between 8-bit and modern in the game’s pause menu. Each has its style and feel but the gameplay elements remain the same. The modernized version looks crisp and well-detailed, bringing to life the Rugrats universe.

In the game, you get to see some of your favorite environments and characters brought to life in updated graphics. Sadly, the game does not include later characters such as Susie, Dill, or Kimi, but the game does reference these characters throughout the game. 

The game does not feature any accessibility options for audio or video. The player can adjust between HD and 8-bit or change the screen border to show more of the level. The game has even limited controller options with the player only able to change the jump button and turn on and off the vibrations.

For audio, players can only adjust the music and SFX volume levels. The soundtrack sounds great and makes you feel nostalgia for the franchise but it seems like such a limited experience for the price point. 

Although it was nice to reconnect with the Rugrats franchise, Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland failed to provide an experience that lives up to the $39.99 price point. If it was between the $10 to $20 threshold, then it would seem fairer, but as it stands it’s not worth it.

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland has a bunch of bugs that break the experience and there are too few levels for the game to justify its asking price. The game has very limited accessibility options and honestly feels more like a cash grab based on nostalgia rather than a love letter to a beloved franchise. 

If you are considering picking up Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland it is better to wait until it goes on sale than to buy it at full price. The game can be completed in 2 to 4 hours even with the bugs. Ultimately it is your choice if you want to pick it up or not.

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland was reviewed on an Xbox Series X using a copy provided by The Mix Games. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is available on September 10th, 2024 on NES, PC (Steam) PlayStation4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.