10. Tiny Toons "Buster Busts Loose" (Super Nintendo)
The Tiny Toons series spawned numerous games. Spanning from the NES to the Playstation 2, they believe it or not managed to release 19 games despite the show only running from 1990 to 1995. The original series followed the junior members of the Looney Tunes family, who attended "Looniversity," to learn how to become competently funny cartoon characters with the more famous characters as their teachers. Not children of the existing Looney Tunes, that'd be weird. Even weirder, they also had one or two humans attending this school for animal cartoons. Montana Max, the spoiled rich kid who looks a bit like Nelson Muntz, and Elmyra, the overly affectionate animal lover. The first few games based on the franchise were mostly basic platformers on the NES and Game Boy, but the real good stuff came during the Super Nintendo/Sega Genesis era. "Buster Busts Loose," came first on the SNES. It followed Buster Bunny across six different themed levels loosely based on episodes from the show and parodies of other famous movies. The gameplay was, like most cartoon adaptations, a side scrolling platformer. Besides just the typical run and jump buttons, this game also made smart use of additional buttons allowing for "Dash" and "Slide," moves. Post level mini games also broke up the gameplay to add a bit more variety to the game. The first few levels stuck to the same platforming technique, but midway through the game Buster is forced to play quarterback in a level based on the Tiny Toons episode, "The Acme Bowl." In it, Buster is the teams receiver, and has to score a touchdown in order for the Acme Looniversity team to win the game. This level was completely different from the rest of the game, but smartly took advantage of the dash and slide techniques to allow Buster to avoid the opposing team members. This was a fun diversion from the usual formula before going back to the standard platforming in a somewhat annoying vertical climbing section that platform games at the time loved including. The game rounded off with an obvious Star Wars parody level, where Buster has to save Babs Bunny from "Duck Vader." A year later the Genesis/Mega Drive did get a decent Tiny Toons game of its own, called "Buster's Hidden Treasure." In that one, Buster was tasked with tracking down Montana Max and recovering a treasure, all the while facing off against his brainwashed Tiny Toon friends to free them from their hypnosis. Again, this was a typical side scrolling platform game which was very similar to the SNES predecessor, with very minor changes. "Hidden Treasure," didn't have the dash and slide moves that the first game had, but did have its own feature in the form of an ally that could be called on to clear the screen of all enemies. Additionally, the controls on "Hidden Treasure," never felt as smooth as those on "Buster Busts Loose," making some of the portions later in the game much more difficult than they should have been. Although also a decent game in its own right, "Buster's Hidden Treasure," is arguably the weaker of the two. It did offer a greater challenge for completion, but the Super Nintendo version had the better mechanics, controls and mini games to make the gameplay experience that little bit better.