Animaniacs: Lights, Camera, Action!

Animaniacs: Lights, Camera, Action!

A terrible way to end the franchise (before the 2020 reboot came out).

Genre(s):	Action Adventure
Platform(s):	Game Boy Advance Nintendo DS
Release Date:	Game Boy Advance June 24, 2005 Nintendo DS August 5, 2005
Developer(s):	Warthog Games
Publisher(s):	Ignition Entertainment

Animaniacs: Lights, Camera, Action! is an action game for the Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance. It was developed by Warthog Games and published by Ignition Entertainment. The game is based on the cartoon series Animaniacs. Since the TV series had ended seven years earlier, and Wakko's Wish being the series finale, this game was the last official appearance of the characters until the 2020 revival. It was also the last game to be developed by Warthog before its discontinuation in 2006.

Gameplay

The basic gameplay consists of running through the stage in an isometric camera-angle, avoiding enemies, finding keys to unlock doors, and solving puzzles. The director is present throughout each stage, and instructs the player what to do next in order to complete the movie. At the end of most stages a boss can be found that has to be beaten.

The player can change characters by finding a "stage door" and then play a game of "polka dottie." Players cannot die in the game, but have a limited amount of time to finish each stage. Time is symbolized by film rolls. If the player touches an enemy, the game will start over from the place where the player last spoke to the director.

Plot

The Animaniacs have caused mayhem and financial damages to Warner Bros. Studios, much to the annoyance of studio president Thaddeus Plotz. Instead of firing them, Plotz assigns the Animaniacs to make three films where he'll use the revenue to fix the studio's financial problems.

Why It Can't Fix Financial Damages

For starter, this game was the last apparition of the franchise until the 2020 revival, and it had possibly dissapointed many fans, especially that this game is now forgotten and not that well know, the only reason this game is know nowadays is mostly because of how rare the DS version is, at least the NA version.
- Not to mention that there's barely any videos of this game online, and there isn't that much longplay of it until Longplay Archive did a longplay of the gba version in 2021, which is currently the only way to watch a full run of this game.
- Even worst, it was said that a GBA Animaniacs game would be almost released in 2003, titled Animaniacs: Hollywood Hypnotics, which looked more promising than this, and it is even worse when you consider that instead, this awful cash grab of a game was released, not only that but The Great Edgar Hunt had that issue in 2003 but luckily it did found a publisher in 2005, howewer Hollywood Hypnotics for some reasons didn't founded any publisher, and it unfortunately lead to the cancellation of the game.
It is a massive downgrade from The Great Edgar Hunt, which was a fantastic game, as this game feel like it's a alpha version of that game due to being an adventure game, not to mention that it is also a downgrade from the game released in 1993 by Konami, even the Game Boy version of that game is better than this.
- Not only that but it is also a bit of a reskin from some of the other Looney Tunes games released in the 2000s, especially Back in Action for the GBA in which both games are similar, though this game is actually better than Back in Action for the GBA, which was even more horrible to play than this.
- In fact, it is even a downgrade from the 1993 game made by Konami (both the Genesis and SNES versions that are completely different), since the puzzles in that game worked very well, but here it is a total failure that feel like it was placed so the game isn't too linear but it didn't work, as you can see.
The DS port do absolutely nothing to improve the game and is just a lazy port of the GBA version, the only different things is that there's two screens and that it.
- To be fair, the screen below serve as seing what you collected but aside from that, it is completely pointless and feel like a lazy port that ended up being even worse than the already bad GBA version, and even if there's that feature, it still absolutely useless especially in the cutscenes since it just make you see a skip option where in the GBA port, there wasn't any of this obviously but also, you could skip them with the start button.
- The only thing that is nes in this version is a multiplayer mode but it is incredibly bad, and nowadays it is almost, if not impossible to even play multiplayer due to, you know, this game being forgotten and not that well know.
For some weird reasons, some of the box art of the PAL GBA version had a Pegi 12 rating to them, which is an incredibly innapropriate rating considering that Animaniacs is mean for kids, and this game isn't violent or anything, or it doesn't had a darker tone either, which is quite strange to rate a kid game to 12+. Though fortunately most of the box art rate it to Pegi 3, which is an appropriate rating.
Absolutely horrible hit-detection that is even worse than R-Type 3 GBA port hit-detection, since you will lose your target toward enemies many times, and it got so bad that killing enemies is incredibly difficult.
Terrible controls that are some of the worst seen in a isometric platformer, since they are very clumsy and especially clunky overall, the jump is the worst offender, being clunky to control and is almost impossible to control it, the controls are so bad that at times they can make the game almost unplayable.
- The platforming is easily the worst part of this game, since the jump is also pretty short, and this make some of the sections extremely hard for no reasons, not helping is the awful collision detection that is possibly worst than the one seen in Sonic 3D Blast.
- The d-pad implantation is absolutely horrible, and is just reversed back, which make it confusing since when you tap only one button, you go in the direction you doesn't want to go, and tapping to the double buttons to one direction leave you with the wrong direction, which is annoying and make this game horrible to play overall, in other words, it is almost unplayable.
The soundtrack is terribly repetitive, consisting of short loop that are comparable to the soundtrack from the GBA port of Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which was even worse than this game.
- Speaking of that game, this Animaniacs game feel like it's a reskin of it because of the gameplay being very similar and also because of the graphics style being similar too (though the graphics are way better in this game), and it doesn't help that the controls sheme is almost the same.
- The soundtrack can sometime sound ear bleeding, or at the very least annoying because of how short the loop is, it is also a bit comparable to some of the Ren & Stimpy games released in the 90s.
- The game doesn't even feature the theme song of the show, even the PS1 game of Aninamiacs had the theme song, and because of this, you can know that with this game you are for a bad start, considering that the cutscenes do not feature any musics at all.
The level design is poorly designed in many ways, and are some of the worst levels in an Animaniacs game ever:
- To start with, the levels are all confusing and you cannot really know where you must go for most of the time, the fact that the camera is awful doesn't help at all, thus making this game tedious and this is already a bad start to describe how bad the level design is.
- There's so many puzzles parts but most of it are rather horrible, since they are for the most parts extremely frustrating, and it mostly is because of the fact that the game itself is like a maze, it so bad that this alone ruined the entire game.
- Platforming sections that are extremely poorly designed, mostly because of the bad controls and for the fact that this game doesn't really feel like it can be a good platformer at all because of the awful controls.
  - Speaking of it, the platform placements are awful and often require near perfection of jumping, this off course make everything worse and it doesn't help because of the awful controls
    - The moving platforms are even worse than the other platforming flaws, since they are extremely hard to land on, and when you need to do platforming sections with them, it is a huge problem because of not only the controls but also because of both the atrocious perspective and especially because of the terrible collision detection.
- The enemies placements are very awful, often they are placed near the way you need to go, and remember that you die in one hit, this combined with that is an awful difficulty spike and it make the game hard to play.
- They aren't designed with the controls in mind, in which, as you can see, did cause massive troubles for the platforming and enemies placements, as well as the horrible pits placed in some of the levels, in fact this is what make this game nearly unplayable, it is so bad that even some of the other worst games on the GBA such as Garfield: The Search for Pooky had better levels than this and that mean something considering that this game is also extremely bad much like this game.
The game is poorly designed in many ways:
- First off, as stated before, you die in only one hit, in which the game isn't even designed with this in mind, making lot of fake difficulty, and especially a lot of annoying things that happen because of that, and it is quite clear that this was either added at the last minute or was added to make the game as frustrating as possible.
- Despite that the game does make you die in only one hit, there isn't any infinite lives system, and while this isn't the biggest issue, it would still helped making this game less difficult, or at the very least, less frustrating and more forgiving, and considering that this is a platform game, it make this a big missed oportunity.
- There's a timer, and off course this make the game even more difficult because you will need a lot of it to complete levels in an easier way, although there's a trick to get a lot of them, see the next sub pointer below.
- While it is a good thing that this was poorly designed, you can get Infinite timers when doing the mini game where you change the characters, in which it is likely a glitch.
There isn't any music in the cutscenes, which is completely unnaceptable for a 2005 GBA game, most of the games released on GBA at the time had music in their cutscenes, howewer this game does not belong in that category at all.
The game do a poor job for giving you weapons, as a result for most of the time you cannot kill enemies and this make the game frustrating, as stated before, at least in the beginning of the levels.
There's SO MANY missed oportunities to the point that it isn't even easy to ignore it.
- First off is that all of the characters had different playstyles or more unique abilities than what ability they have in this game, or giving them their unique weapon, such as with Brain using a laser weapon or with the Warner themself having other things to throw such as eggs or even bricks, in other words, this could had saved the game from being less repetitive.
- They could have make a game similar to The Great Edgar Hunt but with less puzzles and more like a linear platformer, considering that the isometric platformers on the GBA mostly are linear and that work way more than what we got here, sure they might wanted to make this game stand out to the others but still...
- They could had added more story to the game in a similar vein to Spot Goes to Hollywood, which had a similar premise but that game worked better due to being more linear and also because of the controls being a bit better, especially on it's Sega Genesis version but here back to the plot of the game that is the focus of this pointer: The way they could had done this would be that either it's follow a premise where not only they had to fix financial damages, but also had villains trying to stop the Animaniacs to doing so, in which it would make the game story way better and would likely be the best story of an Animaniacs game if it happened but well, it didn't and instead, we got this kind of story with absolutely nothing added to it to make the story more unique than how it is.
Speaking of the story, the story is extremely generic and had lot of missed oportunity, since it resolve about the Animaniacs doing financial damages to Warner Bros., and they had to fix it but the problem is that it's only this, and nothing more, they could have added a villain or misadventure that try to stop them for doing so but no, as stated before.
The game is confusing not only for the level design but also for the puzzles as stated, for exemple, you need to activate something but it can be done with only one character, and worst of all, the game doesn't even tell you about this, making you getting confused of what you had to do.
You can changes characters for doing specifics thing such as activating something but it feel forced into the game and thus, make it even worse when you consider that all of the characters play the same and had little to no differences in playstyles whatsoever and that it feel like it was added as a gimmick.
The game had fake difficulty all over the place, while the game itself is pretty easy, it isn't because of how bad the controls are, and because of the hit-detection, not helping the fact that you die in one hit, which is also stupid since most games at the time this game was released, this was outdated and wasn't present in a lot of GBA game.
The game is pretty short, lasting only 3 to 4 hours, though it might be longer because of the maze-like levels, and also because of the fake difficulty.
There isn't any replay values, and because of how bad this game is, it is likely that you will never play it again and it isn't that replayable, not to mention that this game doesn't even had any unlockable secrets or any other game modes other than the main story mode, which is too bad, the only replay value here is the multiplayer on the DS version, but as stated before, it is almost impossible to play it, and even if you wanted, it is likely that no any peoples you know will own the game, due to how obscure it is, and will likely never even know the existence of this game, yes this game is that obscure despite being based on a popular franchise.
Horrible camera that is extremely troublesome, and do make you having cheap deaths a lot.
For some reasons, the GBA version of this game was left unreleased in North America, which is weird because Animaniacs is more well known there even if in Europe it is popular.
- Also, the DS version apparently got an American release but it is extremely rare, and it might be the rarest DS game in existence, to the point that the NA version is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to found in web sites such as Ebay or Amazon, in fact someone did contacted Warthog Games and one of the employers did said that the NA version copies we're produced to 6000-11000 copies, and because of the game selling extremely poorly, they are incredibly rare to find, and it is quite possible that the NA version was cancelled or never released, and it isn't even know if the NA version did get released or cancelled because of this.
Overall, this game not only ended Warthog Games carrer on a poor note, but also it ended up being possibly the worst Animaniacs game ever because of how horrible the controls are, because of the awful platforming and it also ended the Animaniacs games series on a horrible note.

Redeeming Qualities

The graphics are decent for a 2005 GBA game, as it is pretty colorful and had good environnements theme, in other words, this is the best part of the game, although it look pale in comparison to other GBA games released around the same time and some of the sprites are rough.
The concept of the game was quite great, even the gameplay concept was good but unfortunately it was horribly executed.
Nice box art for both versions, which is somewhat funny to look at, and the drawing is faithful to the show animation.
The game is still quite faithful to the series, even the plot feel like it came from the show, the plot is also rather unique for it's time.
The soundtrack, while horribly repetitive, is actually kind of decent, although the Konami game had better soundtrack than this game.

Reception

The game received mostly negative reviews. Aggregator Metacritic gave Nintendo DS version a 39 out of a 100^[1] while Game Boy Advance version got slightly higher, 43 out of 100.^[2] GameRankings on the other hand, gave the Nintendo DS version 44.30%^[3] and gave Game Boy Advance version a 46.22% rank.^[4]

Trivia

The GBA box art with the erroneous PEGI 12 rating

This is one of the rarest game on DS.^[5]
This is:
- the latest Animaniacs-related video game to be released.
- the last game to be developed by Warthog Games, as the studio would disband in 2006.
- the second and last Animaniacs-related game to be released on the Game Boy Advance, following Pinky and the Brain: The Master Plan.
- the first and only Animaniacs game to be released on the Nintendo DS.
  - The Nintendo DS port is one of the rarest games in the entire system's library, due to its release in Europe only. A possible North American release of this game is still debated as of 2024.
- the final original production of classic Animaniacs-related media to be released. This was also the last Animaniacs-related media to be released in general until the reboot in 2020.
The town background used for the game's cover art is recycled from the cover art of the previous Animaniacs game, The Great Edgar Hunt.
Wakko's burp attack is similar to how he attacks in "Belchinator Too" in the Animaniacs Game Pack.
There's was going to had another GBA game before this one titled Animaniacs: Hollywood Hypnotics, it was planned to be released in 2003 but due to SWING Entertainment closure in that same year, it was cancelled.

Videos

References

Comments

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[1] ttps://www.metacritic.com/game/animaniacs-lights-camera-action/critic-reviews/?platform=ds

[2] ttps://www.metacritic.com/game/animaniacs-lights-camera-action/critic-reviews/?platform=game-boy-advance

[3] ttps://www.gamerankings.com/ds/928862-animaniacs-lights-camera-action/index.html

[4] ttps://www.gamerankings.com/gba/924368-animaniacs-lights-camera-action/index.html

[5] ttps://youtu.be/RnwfgN4jYHQ?si=HwXcYeXmdpXLMqYx

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