Taz-Mania

 Developer: Recreational Brainware    Publisher: Sega    Release: 1992   Genre: Action

The explosive popularity of the Tasmanian devil has always baffled me. In the 90s he was everywhere: the cartoon had a four year run, there was plenty of merchandise, and he was even featured in commercials. Not bad for a character that was all but forgotten for decades. Naturally his popularity led to a slew of video games with the Sega Genesis game coming first and being the most prominent. Taz-Mania is often fondly remembered as one of the best games for the system. Revisiting it now I still hold the same opinion as I did at release: this is a bad game.

One day Hugh, patriarch of the Tasmanian family, gathers everyone around to tell a story. What follows is an interesting story about a race of giant Seagulls that once inhabited the Tasmanian islands. These birds produce giant eggs large enough to feed a family of devils for a year alone. Taz, being the greedy bastard he is, decides to find one of these eggs in hopes of a delicious meal.

Taz-Mania nails the feeling of being Taz. His voracious appetite is present as you can eat nearly anything you come across, from food to bombs to some enemies too. You even eat the 1-up and continue items! Food and water restore health while chili peppers grant flame breath. Not everything is beneficial however. Bombs and weed killer will sap a chunk of your health. Luckily you can pick them up and use them to your advantage. The spin that made Taz so famous is present and your primary means of offense. You can spin through almost everything including items, forcing you to be careful. You can also butt bounce enemies but the hit detection is less than ideal.

The first major impediment to enjoying the game is the controls. The controls are laggy and not as tight as they should be. Taz slides a little after every action and it becomes annoying in short order. The spin move is unwieldy in action which makes sense but can also lead to cheap deaths. The awful collision detection will see you falling through platforms left and right. Sadly platforming comprises a good portion of the game and it is a damn shame the controls are barely up to the task.

The level design is also not good. Taz-Mania exhibits all of the typical flaws of western developed platformers: unclear direction, unfair enemy placement, and blind leaps of faith. The game revels in its gotcha moments with enemies and objects placed to knock you in to pits everywhere. It grows old in short order. You cannot scroll the camera and are left at the games mercy. They place enemies and bombs in unavoidable places unless you memorize the level layout. The blind leaps reach a boiling point in the mines where not only are platforms off screen but they also swerve and wave to throw you off. In a well-designed game this would be a good challenge. Here it is aggravating. It is nice that there are so many set pieces but it becomes repetitive toward the end. They should have trimmed the fat; it would have helped somewhat.

I would not say the game is difficult so much as it is cheap. There are so many problems. They try to balance the cheap hits with life restoring food everywhere. It helps but not much. The levels that see you hop on logs nearly broke me. It is not as simple as hopping from plank to plank. They are on different “levels” and you must press up or down to hopefully land properly. It does not always work. The mine cart sequence encapsulates all the game’s problems and almost made me rage quit. It drags on far too long and moves so fast the few warnings flash by too fast. You can slow down but unless you memorize the layout you will miss the jumps that come next. I persevered but it was not worth it. Honestly even if they fixed the game’s flaws it would still be mediocre.

With all of Taz-Mania’s many flaws why did it gain such notoriety? Because it looks fantastic. Like Castle of Illusion Taz-Mania was one of many 16-bit games that finally resemble the cartoons they are based on. All of the game’s sprites are large and well animated but especially Taz himself. I found myself using his trademark spin just to see the animation over and over. The minimalist style of the game’s backgrounds works to its advantage and would not look out of place in the show. The color palette is bright and vivid and defies the hardware. The only downside of the presentation is the audio. This soundtrack is awful and the sound effects are grating on a level I find astounding.

In Closing

Taz-Mania certainly looks like a winner. But the amateur level design and sloppy control shatters the illusion. It was a chore playing this one to the end and I can confidently say you are better off playing something else.