If you were a kid in the 1990s, or existed in the vicinity of a kid in the 1990s, Rugrats was essentially unavoidable. Heck, that qualifies a good chunk into the 2000s too. The Nicktoons show about a group of babies and toddlers exploring the mysterious world of everyday life aired for a whopping thirteen seasons, and its spin-off All Grown Up ran an additional five. Rugrats had three theatrical movies and two made-for-TV movies, plus all kinds of books, toys, and other goods. To no one’s surprise, Rugrats also spawned a ton of video games. If you were one of those aforementioned 90s kids, you probably owned at least one of them.
Well, they’re back! Some of them, anyway. Limited Run Games is at it again with Rugrats: Retro Rewind Collection, a collection of seven Rugrats games from days gone by. Three PlayStation games are here, including the rather popular Rugrats: Search for Reptar, Rugrats: Studio Tour, and Rugrats in Paris: The Movie. The other four games were originally released on handhelds. From the Game Boy Color, we’ve got Rugrats: The Movie, Rugrats: Time Travelers, and Rugrats in Paris: The Movie Portable. Finally, the selection is rounded out with the Game Boy Advance title Rugrats: Castle Capers. While not an exhaustive selection (indeed, enough are left over to do another collection should Limited Run want to go that route), this assortment is impressive in its breadth.
I just wish I could say the same for the quality of these games. Licensed games aimed at kids were rarely better than average, and often much worse than that. As I played through the games in the collection, I tried to at least imagine how a kid who loved Rugrats would have perceived each of them. That helped a little, but to say these games are a little underwhelming overall would be a dramatic understatement. All of the handheld games were originally developed by Software Creations. The first two of the PlayStation games were done by n-Space, and the third was by Avalanche Software. All three of these developers were known for their workhorse contracting on licensed games, by and large. It was always a roll of the dice what would come out. Rugrats… did not get good rolls.
Before I go into each game, let’s talk about the wrapper features. It’s Limited Run’s Carbon Engine in action once again, but I feel like most of the technical issues that hampered the emulation in earlier releases have been stamped out by now. So yes, the games play as they should, albeit with some likely difficult-to-avoid input lag. They’ve attempted to relabel the button prompts in each of the games, which I would appreciate more if some of those labels weren’t flat-out incorrect. Well, something to fix in an update, I guess. Once you sort out what actually does what, you’ll be fine.
In terms of features, you can save and load a single state in each game (why not more?), rewind at any time, toggle a CRT or Dot Matrix filter, enable a selection of borders, choose from a few display options, and read the original manuals. They’ve been lightly edited, but they’re still helpful in terms of understanding how each game works. While you can access the manuals from in-game, you can also look at both them and the box art for each game in a separate museum section. You can also listen to tunes from the games in a music player mode. Oh, and Rugrats: The Movie, the one hybrid Game Boy Color game of the bunch, can be played in color or monochrome. That’s the lot.
The wrapper gets the job done, but not too much more than that. I’ve banged this drum before, but it would be cool if there were things like developer interviews or history write-ups about the games to help establish some context. It would help in cases like this one where the included titles are not terribly good. Speaking of the games, I suppose it’s time to talk about them. Heavy sigh. Sorry if any of these are your childhood favorites. As a kid who bought too many licensed superhero games, I know the pain.
If any game is the probable star of the show here, it’s Rugrats: The Search for Reptar. It was the first Rugrats game for consoles and, in some sense, the one most free of having to tack on an extra gimmick. The game sold very well and even qualified for the Greatest Hits line. A whole lot of PlayStation-owning kids had this somewhere in their collection. It offers a 3D recreation of the Pickles’ house to wander around in, with certain locations leading to mini-games that, when completed, give you a piece of a Reptar puzzle. Most of the voice cast is here sounding various degrees of bored, and it even does its best to replicate the iconic opening from the TV show. There’s some charm to that. It doesn’t run or play well at all, but Search for Reptar has its moments. I’ll give it that much.
Rugrats: Studio Tour is a slightly better game on paper than The Search for Reptar, but moving things out of the Pickles’ residence makes it feel that ever so much more generic. Once again, you’re doing a variety of mini-games to earn collectibles. In this case, it’s keys to unlock the door that Dil is stuck behind. Some platforming, some racing, and a lot more mini-golf than the first game. Clearly, the developers understood what the people wanted there. The game has a little fun with the movie studio premise, allowing for a wide variety of locations for the kids’ antics. The difficulty is fairly low, as one would expect for a game aimed at the younger set. Technically, it struggles less than the first game, so that’s something. It could be worse.
Okay, welcome to worse. It’s Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, PlayStation 1 version. It’s a new developer this time, and immediately, I was sent into despair at the shift to tank controls. They don’t suit this kind of game at all. Anyway, you’re running around in EuroReptarland this time, but things play out similarly. Go to various locations, do mini-games, collect goodies. Golden tickets are the main prize this time. I will say the game looks and runs a lot better than the previous two games. Unfortunately, it’s just not as fun as those games. And that’s saying something, all things considered. At least the mini-golf is back. That’s the best part of all three of the PlayStation games.
Rugrats: The Movie was the first handheld Rugrats game, and it establishes some mechanics that the next couple of handheld games borrow liberally from. This is not a good thing. For the most part, this is a 2D platformer with very unresponsive controls and obnoxious level designs. You’re given a quota of objects to collect in each stage before reaching the goal, and there’s thankfully usually a surplus. If you take a hit, however, you’ll drop objects and have to go back and collect them again. The collision detection is unforgiving and it can be really hard to tell what’s safe to touch and what isn’t. The graphics are pretty good for the platform, but the audio is not pleasant. There are a couple of mini-games thrown in to mix things up, but they’re no more enjoyable than the rest of the game.
Next up, Rugrats: Time Travelers. The audio is a little better here and the graphics have also been improved, but the gameplay is very similar to that of Rugrats: The Movie. Collect the required number of objects, sometimes find a specific object or character, then make your way to the goal. The gameplay is a little better this time around. If you take a hit, you’ll only lose one of the objects you collected. The collision detection is also better. Still rough, but better. At least it has some of the music from the show this time, and I liked some of the new animations. I could probably see a kid who loved the show getting something out of this.
The third Game Boy Color game in the collection is Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, and it changes things up a little bit. You’ve got a EuroReptarland park map with various levels and mini-games strewn about it. The mini-games earn you tickets, which you can then use to play the levels. You have to beat all the levels in one area to open the gates to the next one. Some of the mini-games are amusing (there are a couple of homages to Shinobi’s bonus stages in here), while the levels include a mix of platforming stages similar to the previous games and a few quirkier ones. No item collecting this time around as a rule, and the babies now have energy meters. Again, not a very good game, but one I could see little ones tolerating well enough back in the day.
Finally, the Game Boy Advance title Rugrats: Castle Capers. This looks quite good and the audio is… fine enough. It’s more of a straightforward Point A to B platformer than any of the previous games, with the sole gimmick being that if you find the other babies in each stage, you can use them to give your jumps a boost. The camera is a pain and movement is very slippery, but this is probably the most agreeable game in the whole collection. Woof. The weirdest part of it is in the boss battles, where you more or less just have to hang out for a few minutes dodging attacks until whatever form Angelica has taken coughs up the items you’re after. Apart from that, this is a rather average platformer. So… win?
Unless you’re a curious person who likes poking at the less-celebrated side of gaming history, it’s hard to recommend Rugrats: Retro Rewind Collection to someone without specific, strong nostalgia for one or more of the included games. It’s not that there’s nothing to any of them, but you’re not missing much if you never play them. If, on the other hand, you do have happy childhood memories of playing any of these games, you’ll likely appreciate the work Limited Run Games has done to bring them to modern platforms. It’s really hard to imagine anyone else would, and regardless of what I think of the games, that effort earns my respect.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch
Review Copy Provided by Limited Run Games
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