I don’t know what’s scarier: The fact that I remembered this game from back when
Bugs Bunny’s 50th birthday was a big thing... or the fact that he’s now into his 70s.
Still, he’s one of those franchise characters to end all franchise characters, so if you
can get the rights to stick him in a video game, you do exactly that.
Kemco saw some success when they inserted Bugs into the first Crazy Castle game (thus
displacing that poor bastard Roger Rabbit), so folks were at least familiar with what
to expect from this one.
Except it’s nothing like Crazy Castle at all.
Sure, the sprite they used for Bugs looks pretty similar.
But the puzzle aspects?
Gone.
The limited arsenal?
Gone.
The proto-Metal-Gear-style avoidance techniques?
Obsolete.
The new Bugs carries a mallet with him at all times - just in case some of those B-list
characters get uppity - and has finally learned how to jump.
Kinda paradoxical for a rabbit, don’t you think?
I mean... yeah.
Anyway.
Someone’s throwing him a big ol’ party, and said B-list get a collective case of the
BURNING JEALOUSY.
So what’s their plan?
OFF THE SPOTLIGHT-HOGGING LAGOMORPH!
What follows is two dozen stages of mostly side-scrolling platformer, as the awesome
action-puzzle fun that threatened Solomon’s Key and Castlequest must’ve been too much
for the cartoon-saturated target demographic.
Oh well.
Still, it’s a pretty decent platformer, full of... ambulatory alarm clock bombs, sentient
hammers, boxes of... soap, and... y’know, I should just stop trying to look for any
consistency or semblance of reason in games like this.
It’s a cartoon, for cryin’ out loud!
And even then, one of the most iconic cartoons of our time!
Trying to analyze it in any context other than “LOL 16 TON WEIGHT” is irrelevant,
ultimately.
It’s perfect for abstraction into a side-scrolling platformer.
And in that respect, the game shines.
That is, even if the premise is a little flaky.
Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, Yosemite Sam... those are names I’m prepared to accept as
malcontents.
They’ve had a thing out for Bugs since the 40’s, and if they need to express their
blood rage in the context of a video game, so be it.
Tweety, on the other hand...
Tweety!
Tweety’s not evil!
Well, except in that one episode where he drank that Jekyll-and-Hyde potion... and the
entire Bob Clampett era... y’know what, forget I said anything.
Tweety’s a bastard.
A cold, hard killer.
Who throws tomatoes from behind a bush.
‘Cuz when you’re in Entertainment like Bugs, those tomatoes HURT.
Between stages you can spend the carrots you collect to play a weird little bingo variant
in the hopes of winning some arbitrary number of extra lives.
That said, healing is plentiful, and the enemies aren’t particularly difficult to dodge,
so they’re largely going to just sit there until something ridiculous happens like...
Well, like an entire sand dune falling out from under you with no explanation whatsoever!
I warned you about cartoons, man.
I told you, dog.
Oh well.
In a flip-flopping of epic proportions, Bugs Bunny’s Alliteration Anomaly seems like
it’d appeal to folks who didn’t particularly like Crazy Castle’s emphasis on tactics
and AI manipulation.
In any circumstance, the goal seems to be the complete subjugation of minor characters.
As it should.
Put ‘em in their place.
That’s what they get for messing with the king.