Do you have any childhood memories that you can’t, for the life of you, recall if you dreamt up or not? The Nintendo-64 was my very first introduction to the video gaming world and it was love at first sight. I spent so much of my formative years on that cherished system. After a long gaming binge, I’d occasionally have vivid, wacky dreams of some secret areas within Peach’s Castle, Lands of Hyrule or Gruntila’s Lair that didn’t actually exist. For years, there was one game that I couldn’t quite distinguish from reality and it turns out, according to a quick google search, wasn’t just some conjured up fever-dream.
Rugrats: Scavenger Hunt is a lackluster Mario-Party knockoff that feels just as clumsy as it is uninspired. The game captures none of the charm or charisma of the kids show that it’s based off of. The characters have lifeless features that don’t at all resemble the show’s lively expression. Gameplay has a lousy, repetitive approach that gets tiresome within minutes. I never even understood how to play the game either. Even as an adult, your guess is as good as mine. It drops you into this dark 3D game board with zero sense of direction or given objectives. What is even the point?
The game is creepy as shit. All the character models have this uncanny, unnatural look to them with that unblinking thousand yard stare, like their eyelids are being forced open Clockwork Orange style. I understand that the developers were limited by the N64 hardware of the time, but they should’ve realized that they were frankensteining together a monster that was going to confuse and traumatize small children. Even as a little rugrat myself, I was so off-put by it all. The game map is some sort of empty Aztec Temple and has a surreal and disorienting vibe that, paired with the jarring off-key music, is pure nightmare fuel for the kids. Apparently, there’s a couple other game-board levels but I never made it that far to discover them as I didn’t understand what the hell I was even doing.
In summation, this game is dull drab. I was never so frustratingly bored by a game as a child. This is saying a lot considering I did, at one point, rent the abomination that is Superman-64. What I thought was going to be an imaginative childlike adventure to go on like in the show, turned out to be a mind-numbing slog. I feel like babysitting an actual toddler would’ve been more exciting. This game belongs in the trash with the rest of the dirty diapers.Â
Chao,
Mikhail
Verdict: 1.5/10