Rugrats: Search For Reptar Review
You gotta babysit those dumb babies and help them find all the pieces to Tommy's Reptar puzzle.
Developer: n-Space
Publisher: THQ
Release Date: 31st October 1998 (NA), 23rd November 1998 (UK)
Platform: PlayStation
Back in the 90’s, long before a certain spongey Robert came about, Rugrats ruled the Nickelodeon plain. Those silly little babies would get into all kinds of mishaps while aggravating the eldest of the group with their parents none the wiser. There came two films with a crossover film with The Wild Thornberry’s for a third and naturally that meant eventually there would be video games of the babies. The first would be Rugrats Adventure Game, a PC point-and-click adventure as well as a film tie-in PC game around the same time by Broderbund. But the first to really make a hit was Search For Reptar. It was an effort made by THQ to attract younger children to the platform resulting in becoming one of PlayStation’s best selling titles.
The game has you play as Tommy completing a series of minigames, sometimes as Chuckie, Phil & Lil, and Angelica too, and upon each completion you’re awarded with a puzzle piece. Collect them all and you’re rewarded with a fun bonus level where you play as Reptar smashing up the city. And what a fun reward it is too.
I first played this when I was about 8 or 9 when my brother borrowed it from a friend from school and I remember being captivated by it. It could’ve been because of the tv I was playing it on at the time but it all seemed huge, and the vibrant colours and visuals were burned into my brain. I remember spending an evening after school plowing through the game surprisingly quickly and by the time I got to play as Reptar it was the most exciting thing I had seen or done at that point in my childhood. It wasn’t until the beginning of this year where I felt the urge to wanna play it again. For the most part it’s good but I believe it is very much a game that is only good while steeped in nostalgia. Or you’re a wee kid, who this is very much intended for.
The controls are mostly ok. You can jump and pick up and throw items and interact with certain context sensitive items. Controlling and moving around Tommy or whomever at the time is fine enough, although they do feel rather janky, very much like waddling babies who have only just learned to walk. So I suppose that’s as authentic a feel as possible when controlling baby characters, if you can work around that stiffness. As such you will find yourself getting caught up on ledges and walls when trying to jump obstacles, which also occurs when playing with Spike in a level causing some frustration. The worst offender in this game however is the camera. It can be so slow and unweildy to control and keep behind you and keep it from getting caught around walls, you end up wrestling with the camera more than you do controlling the babies or dealing with enemies in certain levels. As a kid you’re not going to notice it much, however, and be a bit more forgiving.
Like all good kids games you’re greeted with a tutorial level that’ll help you get familiar with the controls, grabbing items, and other little things you’re expected to do throughout the game. It also introduces you to what items you’re expected to pick up; cookies for health and Reptar bars for lives.
There are 10 levels over varying difficulties, 3 for easy and hard each and 4 on medium. Each level is available to access around the Pickles’ residence, interacting with key items such as Angelica’s Cynthia doll, a bag of golf clubs, a cookie box, Grandpa’s teth, and so forth. The Pickles’ residence serves as the central hub and nicely you can explore pretty much everywhere. You can explore all the bedrooms, the living room, bathrooms, kitchen, and down in the basement too. Around you’ll find hidden Reptar bars in nooks and crannies rewarding your exploration. This makes a great area to further play around in and get familiar with the controls to your childish heart’s content. Most all of the levels play off from episodes of the show too.
For easy levels there are:
Chuckie’s Glasses: Silly boy’s gone and lost them again so while playing as Chuckie you’ve got to look all around the Pickles’ residence to find them. To do so you’ve gotta find the other babies in hiding, tag them, then race them back to the baby pen.
Ice Cream Mountain: The longest of the levels, perhaps, in that the kids are taken to get ice cream, but not without a spot of mini-golf first. Play a round of 9 holes then get your just rewards. In this you take turns playing as Tommy, Chuckie, Phil & Lil and Angelica per hole. Most of it is pretty straight forward for a kid’s first golfing game experience, just hit X to fill the meter then again to hit the ball, but some holes can be a little devious.
The Mysterious Mr Friend: Head into the basement for a boss battle against numerous Mr Friends run amok. Just grab and hurl junk at them and you’re good.
As for medium difficulty levels there are:
Grandpa’s Teeth: Now things are stepping up. First, wander around a hedge maze with Chuckie finding Grandapa’s lost teeth where you find a goose has his chompers. Hop on Spike, jump over hurdles and chase that bird into a shuffleboard court. Hurl pucks at the fiend until it coughs out Grandpa’s gnashers.
Circus Angelicus: Angelica’s rigged the garden into a circus and has recruited her dumb babies as her attractions. First is a dog show with Spike, making him jump hurdles while collecting dog bones. Next is a race with Phil & Lil where they pick up speed around the garden until they launch off onto a target. And finally as Angelica you catapult Chuckie into a pile of leaves. This final one I had trouble with the timing resulting in having to do the whole sequence all over again.
Let There Be Light: A rather surprising horror-esque level where the lights have all gone out, but Tommy knows there’s light always hiding in the “fridgerdator” so taking a torch he finds his way down to the kitchen, shining his light at any creepy ghosties in the way and picking up batteries along the way to keep himself topped up. If Tommy were a writer he’d be Alan Wake.
Visitors From Outer Space: Aliens have come and stolen away humans in the dead of night and so Angelica wanders the alien space ship trying to free the babies and escape. It’s a little bit mazelike and a little bit of a shooter, and a little confusing to get around sometimes but a fun callback to the episode.
And finally the hard levels:
Incident in Aisle Seven: With Grandpa, Tommy wanders around the supermarket assaulting workers and lobsters while navigating slippery floors all so he can grab a box of Reptar cereal.
Toy Palace: Tommy and Chuckie are taken to the toy store but get separated. As Chuckie, navigate the dark back of the store until you find Tommy again. Then as Tommy he must climb obstacles to turn on the giant robot Reptar to destroy a robot gorilla.
The Seven Voyages of Cynthia: Cynthia is lost, thanks to Tommy and Chuckie, but good ol’ Spike dives down into the sewers and onto the dump to find her. Navigate the mazes of the sewers and dump, the latter on a time limit, and avoid perilous obstacles like rats and dirty water.
Then there’s the bonus levels, one where you have to race Angelica to the kitchen for cookies and another where you hunt for easter eggs around the house getting more than Angelica. There’s some other bonuses based on the show. The famous Touchdown Tommy where the babies play football keepaway from Angelica with a bottle of chocolate milk; No More Cookies where you have to play keepaway again from Angelica with a box of cookies; Gold Rush where as Phil you wander the park collecting as many coins as possible; and Mirrorland where Tommy falls into a mirror and everything’s turned upside down. Grab complete collections of coloured baloons and Tommy can fall back right side up into the mirror.
It’s all very minigame filled in varying ways with some light platforming in places. Some of it can be a little stiff, some of it the timing catches you off guard, some of it isn’t clear on what to do, and some of it is a bit clunky, especially with playing as Spike jumping hurdles. Most levels are also quite short while some are also tedious to play. Again, kids will forgive these flaws more easily than adults because once you get into it they are quite fun to do. The bonus games pop up after you complete a couple of the main games. As such with only 12 pieces of the puzzle to get and 10 main games plus 6 bonus games you’re going to do anyway, you’re not going to hit all of the mini games in a single playthrough as completing each you’ll get a puzzle piece. So you could easily go through all of the easy and medium levels and maybe one hard level and miss out on 3 levels and still beat the game. In the end when you get all of the puzzle pieces and complete the final Repar level and beat the game, it all suddenly ends and boots you right to the beginning again. It feels a little like whiplash and you barely have a moment to process that you’ve beaten it. The game is also remarkably short, too. You can blast through it all in about 2 hours. Fitting for a young kid’s attention span though, I suppose.
The game looks and sounds pretty authentic to the show anyhow. It retains the main cast and has Mark Mothersbaugh doing the music as he does in the show, giving you that crazy, acid injected bopping of his. Of course the main cast basically treated it all like a regular episode of the show, so they naturally sound spot on. It all sounds great.
Visually it looks alright too. The 3D visuals might seem a little awkward in spots but it does look as authentically cartoony enough, as much as it can to the show with late 90’s PS1 graphics anyway. They tried where they could. At least the cast looks recognisable as does the settings and levels, and the menus have the same zig-zaggy wildly designed cards as the show does. It’s appropriately cartoony for PS1 quality.
One thing that should be apparent with this game however is it was on a bit of a budget, like most licensed games at the time. So the graphics aren’t as polished as they could be, the buggy controls aren’t as polished as they could be either, nor some required general tidying up around the edges. Because of that it makes this a rather short and small game but that’s perfectly ideal for young kids.
And overall it’s a great kids game and a great Rugrats game. It’s funny and matches the show’s wit, it’s plenty vibrant and colourful and imaginative and it does all look the part, and it’s short and sweet just like the episodes. There’s a charming appeal to this game that despite its flaws and broken parts it’s still very enjoyable. For adults it holds great nostalgic value and is still fun to play if you don’t want something serious to play or scrutinise. For very young kids it’s undoubtedly great fun. This was one of the first titles made for the PlayStation to draw in younger children and it evidently worked. Could they be playing other games like Crash Bandicoot or Spyro? Sure, but Rugrats is a great introduction for 4-8 year olds. I just wish it had a bit more polish to it.
Still, it’s a worthwhile play even today for some light, whimsical innocent fun.
Where to Purchase:
eBay: £6 - £30 / $8 - $102
Amazon: £10 - £40 / $17 - $130