The Ren & Stimpy Show: Time Warp

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The Ren & Stimpy Show: Time Warp
Ren & Stimpy should have go back in time to stop this eediot of a game from being released.
Genre(s): Action
Beat em up
Platform(s): Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Release Date: NA: November 1994
Developer(s): Sculptured Software
Publisher(s): THQ
Series: The Ren & Stimpy Show
Predecessor: The Ren and Stimpy Show: Fire Dogs
Successor: The Ren & Stimpy Show : Buckeroo$! (SNES)

The Ren & Stimpy Show: Time Warp is a beat-up video game developed by Sculptured Software and published by THQ for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

Gameplay

The Ren & Stimpy Show: Time Warp features 10 stages. The game is a beat 'em up, consisting of basic attacks, like Ren's slap, and Stimpy's hairball attack. The game features some references to the show, such as the "Happy Happy Joy Joy song.

Plot

The game's premise centers on Ren and Stimpy's efforts to navigate through time and stop Muddy Mudskipper from ruining history.

Why It's An EEDIOT!!! and Can't Use the Time Machine

  1. The controls are horrible and even worse than in the previous games, even more than in Fire Dogs, since they are extremely stiff, clunky and unresponsive and almost veer into Bubsy 3D level of awful controls too, no, this isn't even a joke.
    • This is even more of a problem when fighting bosses since they are extremely annoying and are harder by the fact that the controls are horrible and unresponsive, this could lead to cheap deaths too, and also frustration.
    • The controls also had questionable mapping, since running is not mapped on Y (which is the attack button) or B (which is the jump), but rather on L and R, which is incredibly awkward and a terrible idea by itself, it's almost like the level of Family Dog awful buttons placements, and that is seriously saying something since that game was even worse than this, which is quite an accomplishment considering how horrible this game is.
    • Speaking of how unresponsive the controls are, they even look like they were copy-pasted from the Itchy and Scratchy mini-game from The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare, but somehow made even worse since the controls take an entire second to move at times due to how bad they are. Sure, the other Ren and Stimpy games on SNES also had this problem, but not to this extent.
    • They also are slow, while it isn't noticeable on the main levels, it is noticeable for the boss fights since they are faster than you and for some of them you can barely escape from their attacks at all, making the bosses and controls even worst than it's already is.
    • When you jump, you can't even change your direction like in the NES Castlevania games, this makes the game even harder and extremely annoying, frustrating, and tedious, this is also unacceptable for 1994 standards since most beat them up at the times did allow you to move when jumping, when in this game it isn't the case. Talk about clunkiness...
      • Speaking of the jump, the controls for it are also extremely unresponsive and stiff, since not only do you can't change your direction when jumping but also it feel slow and almost useless due to how bad it is.
    • The controls are also incredibly slippery and are even more slippery than those of Veediots!, since here when you either use the running button, or move fast, there's a good chance that Ren (or Stimpy) doesn't stop and even when walking, they are very slippery and could cause some cheap deaths at times, yes it's this bad.
  2. Your objectives are some of the vaguest in any video game ever. The biggest example of this is that of the first level: it states that Ren and Stimpy must collect 47 million Gritty Kitty proof-of-purchase seals, which can lead players to assume that they have to get exactly 47 seals; however, it turns out you have to get at least 65 of the seals to proceed to the next level.
    • Also, if you fail to get 65 of them, then it's an instant game over, and you need to restart all over again, this makes the level extremely frustrating, and also the fact that you need to get not 47 but 65 is not obvious to even the smartest peoples too, not only that but this indicate that the game was rushed.
    • Not only that, but getting 47 of them is hard enough, but 65 is nearly impossible, especially if you don't know how to do it, also it makes the game even more tedious and barely if never had any fun because of this. This is the most likely reason why this game ended up being so bad in the first place.
  3. This game uses the "sinking platform" and "fall damage" clichés, which do not mesh well with a beat-'em-up game, and also make it more frustrating than a unique mechanic, not to mention that this game might be the only beat-up game in existence to have the "fall damage" mechanic.
  4. Whenever you take a hit - just one little hit - while using a special item or when powered up with a can of Powdered Toast, the characters will instantly lose said power-up/item.
  5. The password system is nearly useless, as the only thing you unlock with them are the bonus games instead of any real levels. Therefore, the main game must be completed in one shot, which is a major red flag considering how long it is, even , Stimpy Invention on the Sega Genesis had this problem but it's not a big deal since that game was short and not as long as this game.
    • Not only that but the mini-games themselves are poor and outdated, to the point that even Bart's Nightmare had better mini-games than this. Specifically, the mini-games copy Space Invaders, Asteroid and finally Pac-Man but they lack the charm and fun these games had, and even worse, most of them aged poorly except for Pac-Man, but they still are better games than these mini-games and even this horrible game overall.
  6. The sound effects are absolutely horrendous and especially annoying, even more than in the previous games. They can even drive you insane; for example, when you get hit, both characters scream every time, and whenever Stimpy attacks, HE screams. These screams are incredibly annoying and might make you want to say shut up.
    • Not to mention that they are incredibly loud too, to the point that even the Acclaim games on NES sound effects sound better than this. The screams in particular are some of the loudest sound effects in the history of the SNES.
    • Not only that, but they try way too hard to sound funny, such as Stimpy's attacks or the screams of the characters, but they end up sounding annoying compared to the cartoon. Just imagine if there are too many enemies and they constantly hit you, then you will go insane at times and it could get to the point that you will want to stop playing, or less extremely, turn off the sound of your TV.
  7. The game is extremely long for a game like this. While you may think that it is a good thing, it is not in this game because not only the levels are long, but the password system also makes it a huge problem, since the game takes 1h30m or 2 hours to beat, which is incredibly long for a game with no passwords, much like Krusty's Fun House.
  8. The soundtrack is terrible and annoying, even when compared to the previous Ren and Stimpy games, except for the theme song of course. The problem with the soundtrack is that it sounds annoying, and repetitive, and is also a 10 or 20-second loop, not to mention that the tone of the music is poor or annoying too, or simply doesn't fit the game at all.
    • Some of the tracks that are just a loop don't even sound catchy at all, while in some games such as the Game Boy Doraemon games (especially Doraemon Kart) and The Simpsons games on both the NES and Master System had just a piece of loop music at times, they at least sound catchy but here, it just sounds so bad that you might even go insane for just listening to the music.
      • Also, it is not helped by the fact that the sound effects that blend with the horrible sound effects can make it an absolute nightmare of an experience, and might be the absolute worst song combination you will ever hear, and no this is not a joke!
  9. The level design is abysmal and so much worse than all of the Ren and Stimpy games you will ever find, since many levels suffer from repetition, awful enemy placements, and some awful hazards placed everywhere, in fact, it is the main reason why the game is so bad and frustrating in the first place, which will be explained in the sub pointers.
    • Episode 1 (in general): This level is already extremely frustrating with a lot of enemies that are impossible to dodge at times, and the objective as said before is terrible, you need to find 65 Gritty Kitty and not 47 like the level tells you at the beginning, not only that but it goes into Dragon Ball Z: Sagas level of bad objectives but somehow much worst than that game. The boss in that level is also atrocious since he will every time eat you and you can barely escape him before he eats you, if you want more details about why this boss or the bosses in general suck, see WIAEACUTTM#11.
      • Backyard is the first section of the level and it is already bad, since the first boss take a huge number of hits, the bees are hard to dodge and you also need to destroy walls where the placement you need to go is not clear and due to the awful hit-detection, you get hit instead of destroying hit, if you attack it in the wrong place, it attack you.
      • Big City is where the game start to be extremely frustrating, since there is many enemies that make the level frustrating, and they are hard to dodge or kill without difficulty, it also had frustrating bosses (more on that later).
      • Time Warp I is a mediocre level as usual with this game and is poorly executed but the problem is mostly the awful collision detection and the fact that it's drag on longer, the same can be said for the other but in a way worse way than this first Time Warp level.
    • Episode 2 (in general): This level is extremely long, frustrating and tedious to playthough, since it had lot of enemies to kill, awful enemies placements, horrible wall and platforms placements and overral had fillers to make it longer.
      • Haunted House I: This level had many obstacles that are extremely annoying to deal with, and there's also thunders that appear out of nowhere, which is incredibly annoying to and might make you want to rage quit this game at times since they are impossible to see for dodging them.
      • Haunted House II is even worse than the first part, since it had many awful platforming sections and there is a lot of atrocious enemies placements that are some of the absolute worst in the game, and it is really long to playthough too.
      • Time Warp II is a repetitive level that is howewer annoying and tedious to playthough, even more than the first Time Warp level, since the places where you need to get though are really tight, which make it difficult to not crash on them.
    • Episode 3
      • Zoo level is extremely annoying with once again awful platforming sections and awful enemies placements that make the level really annoying, which isn't surprising at this point, howewer it isn't as atrocious as the last levels.
      • Time Warp III is extremely annoying and painful to get though, with the same problems as the first two, and here it is stupidly hard and tedious, and once again it's repetitive.
    • Episode 4 (in general): This level once again is long and absolutely frustrating to compete, with horrible platforming sections, more awful enemies placement than Episode 2, lots of trial and error, and yes, the cave has sand that must to be digging and it's extremely long to get through, making it easily the absolute worst level of the entire game.
      • The island level is very difficult and there's so many tiny platform that are very hard to get through, and what worse is that the flying enemies are even more annoying than the previous levels.
      • The cave level is very repetitive, you must dig to get through, otherwise, you're get beating uo by enemies, which end up being extremely annoying and tedious after a while.
      • Time Warp IV is absolutely atrocious and is once again too hard to get through, yet, once again had the same problem as the first three, but here is absolutely crazy and yet again, it's very repetitive to get though, because of all of this, it ended up being the absolute worst Time Warp level of the game and one of the worst part of the game, which is saying a lot considering how bad the other levels also are.
  10. Some bosses take a lot of hits to be taken down, even in the first level, there is a dog that take a lot of hits before dying if you use your regular attack.
  11. The game seem like it doesn't know what it want to be, since there is many phases of gameplay, sometime it is pure beat em up, other times it feel like a platformer and also it feel like it want to be a shoot 'em up for the Time Warp level, and all of these different gameplay parts are terrible.
  12. There is no save feature, which makes this game an absolute nightmare to beat at best, this isn't even helped by the fact that this game is even longer than the other on SNES.
  13. The game is extremely frustrating for stupid reasons, the difficulty is even artificial due to the awful controls, hit-detection, and also the level design alone, in fact it so bad that it give Mega Man X6 a run for it's money (even though that game came 6 years after).
    • The objectives are also frustrating to complete, to the point of making this game even more tedious than it already is, and since the game is already hard enough even if it wasn't for the bad objectives these are nearly impossible to understand and could make the game unintentionally harder, it is even more frustrating if you want to speedrun this game.
    • The combat is also very frustrating due to how bad it is, and this is not helped by the horrible hit-detection, not to mention that it's even more frustrating with the awful bosses that had way better combat than you, or at least we should say that they are stronger than you.
    • Another thing that make the game extremely frustrating is when there are too many enemies to the point that you might as well get beat up and doesn't had any chances to go away from them and attacking them after that, and another thing that make this even more annoying is when the characters will often scream when getting hit, which is as said before, annoying and painful to listen to.
  14. Absolutely atrocious hit-detection that is even worse than in Buckeroo$!, since here it will not register your attacks all the times, and the hit-detection isn't fluid too, making some of the bosses even harder and worse than they already are.
    • Even the platforming sections suffer from this problem, since the platforms had a horrible problem of having a terrible collision that is even on par with The Simpsons trilogy on the NES, since sometime you will jump on it but it will nor register your jump and you will instead fall over, which is incredibly annoying and litteraly make the game unplayable.
    • When attacking, the hit-detection seem to had a lot of delay, which is not only a terrible thing but when you thing about it, it is even worse when you know that the combat is actually terrible and not to mention that this make for a really hard or even downright unplayable game.
  15. The programming in this game is horribly bad, even more than most Ren & Stimpy games, and there is a lot of exemples, to the point of also having lot of glitchs and to being just as atrocious as in the Game Boy port of Veediots!, in which that port was just as bad as this, if not even worse.
    • This is even the main reason of why the hit-detection is this terrible, as it is so poorly programmed that it is almost non-existent.
    • The fact that sometimes, the enemies can hit you while you're not even close to them, this is because of their large hit-box that is very poorly done, and due to how bad your hit-box is, then it happen a lot, and it could potentially make the game even harder.
  16. Absolutely annoying AL, not to mention that it isn't even balanced at all. The problem is that the enemies either always attack you and doesn't leave you until you die, or either they see you but they will not coming at you, or they will attack but due to the fact that you aren't as their position, then they doesn't hit you and then you just smash the enemy and then it's finished.
  17. Terrible combat that might probably be one of the worst combat system of a beat em up, since here it is extremely repetitive, horrible to do and also it is ruined by the terrible hit-detection.
    • Also, speaking of the combat, there is no combos, no supermoves and also, there isn't that much attacks to use than just your slap attack, which is the reason of why the combat is incredibly repetitive.
    • There is also no jump moves, just your regular attack once again, which is bad on so many levels for a 1994 beat em up game, even most beat em up had at least an unique jump move, even if it doesn't had that much attacks variaty.
  18. As you guessed, the bosses are terrible and some of the worst in not only the entire franchise but even some of the worst bosses in the SNES library in general, since they either are incredibly easy or in the most notable case, extremely unfair for stupid and horrendous reasons, for the most parts it's because of both the awful hit-detection and the horrible controls. They also are a bit unbalanced, since they either are hard or way too easy.
    • Episode 1
      • The first boss is a big dog, but he is stupidly easy despite having to take too many hits to kill him, since you just need to attack him until he dead, and if you team up with Stimpy and using him as a weapon, then the boss will die in only 4 hits.
      • The second boss is awful, since you will need luck to beat him, and you can barely if never even escape from him at all, since the controls are so poor that they are also slow, as mentioned before, which isn't surprising at this point.
      • The third boss is extremely annoying and frustrating due to his attacks being hard to dodge due to a big hit-detection and also take lot of hits before dying, but howewer he somehow still the best boss of the episode 1.
    • Episode 2
      • The first boss is really easy since you can just spam your attacks and kill them easily, not to mention that they once again take a lot of hits.
      • The second boss, which are two big dogs, are incredibly annoying if you don't use your partner as an attack, since they attack you in a easy way and they deal ton of damages.
    • Episode 3
      • The boss from episode 3 is absolutely abysmal and is one of the worst boss of the entire game, since he can catch you easily and this is going to get on your last nerv due to how much time he will catch you.
  19. The final boss is anticlimactic: after all of those shenanigans in the "Untamed World" level, from the sinking platforms and digging through the caverns, the boss is a trio of recolored monkeys from the previous level. This is a huge missed opportunity to finally give Muddy Mudskipper what he deserves.
  20. You doesn't get any invincibility when getting hit, which make the game even harder and frustrating, especially when you get lot of enemies that beat you up and that they don't let you go away. Even Veediots! had invincibility frame and by the way, that game was also much better than this.
  21. Sometime it is not even clear that you need some power ups to go in some areas, which might make the game even more annoying and tedious, this is a big problem for the first level, due to the fact that you need 65 Gritty Kitty and that it is hard to get them with ease.
  22. The story is pretty awful and very poorly executed, due to not having cutscenes that explain the plots or the situation that Ren & Stimpy are before a level start, even Veediot! had cutscenes that explain the plots before a level and it was released in 1993, it also doesn't help that this game take the story from the show episodes but they all are poorly respected in this game.
  23. The running is nearly useless since there is way too many enemies in the game that will attack you without stopping themself, this is even to the point that it might count as suicide if you use it, especially in the later levels, also you doesn't even get to jump longer or higher, making it even more useless.
  24. There's four endings and there is a mean-spirited ending, which is the Ending 0, when your characters didn't get enough money, they telling the players to retry the entire game, which is extremely bad and a middle finger to the players that did had a hard time to beat this game.
    • To get the best ending, you must collect $90. This combined with the frustrating gameplay is making it even harder to get, otherwise, you get the bad ending if you get little/no amount of money.
    • Believe it or not, this game here might be the moment where Stimpy is at his absolute worst in the entire franchise (maybe even worse than in Adult Party Cartoon), and is shockingly one of the few times where Stimpy is unlikable.
    • To think about it, the absolute worst part might be the fact that both Ren and Stimpy litteraly mock the player if they didn't get enough money, to the point of being even worse than in the ending of Buckeroo$!, they even say that they should give this game cart to peoples who know how to play games, which is incredibly mean-spirited and is even offensive to the players.
      • Also, if you got this ending, that mean that you did this all for nothing, and peoples that did hated the game so much might never ever touch it again even if they got this ending, yeah, that how horrible Time Warp is.
  25. Almost no replay values, since after you beat the game, you will likely never want to replay it again, and the mini games are not interesting and not enough for high replay values.
  26. Overral, it ended the video games adaptations of Ren & Stimpy in a horrible note, since after this (if you doesn't count Buckeroo$$! on SNES), not any other Ren & Stimpy game we're made and this also ended up being one of, if not the worst game of not only the SNES Ren & Stimpy but also the entire franchise in general, which make it even more horrendous than it's already is.

Redeeming Qualities

  1. The graphics are once again really good and look exactly like the show it is based on, despite the horrible animations of the characters, in fact it might be the best looking Ren & Stimpy game to exist.
  2. The game had potential to be a really good game but due to how bad the controls and gameplay are, the game fall to the category of good potential but poorly executed.
  3. Some of the musics are still catchy, despite being extremely repetitive, but again the loop is annoying and ruin the chances of the soundtrack being good.
    • The remix of the theme song in the title screen is excellent and maybe the best music of the entire game, it is also possibly the best remix of the theme song.
    • Some of the sound effects are alright, though not as decent as in the other SNES Ren & Stimpy games.
  4. The voice acting, with the exception of the annoying scream, is quite good for a SNES game, with them sounding extremely clean for the system it's release on, the Happy Happy Joy Joy song that play after you beat a section of a level is a great exemple, as it sound very clean and even had lyrics, much like for the theme song rendition in the first SNES Mighty Morphin Power Rangers game.
  5. The game is still a little faithful to the show, especially for the art style and the title screen, or for the plot (that got badly downgraded due to this game having poor story).

Reception

"What were they thinking?"
The Shit Scale
Games that are debatably bad High level of shit contamination The very high category The severe zone Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Major code red
👆
This product belongs to the "Very High Category" category of the AVGN's Shit Scale.

The reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly praised the game's animations and various attacks, but stated that the controls "could be tweaked up a little more".

Next Generation reviewed the game, rating it one star out of five, and stated that "When Nickelodeon fired creator John Kricfalusi, the heart and soul were sucked out of the pair. This game puts the final nail in the coffin."

AVGN mentioning this game in the "Twelve days of Shitmas" Episode "The Ren and Stimpy Show: Fire Dogs" He's criticized the game for the gameplay and being too difficult. He ended up being bored after defeating the first boss.[1]

On Gamefaqs, the game had a score of 2.09 (Poor) based on 51 users.[2]

Trivia

  • Although the game was rated Teen for "Animated Violence" by the then-new ESRB, the rating itself is never shown on any part of the box or the cartridge. [3]
  • While this isn't the last Ren & Stimpy game, it is the last original one that isn't a port (Buckeroo$$! on SNES was released one year after this game, in April 1995).

Videos

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References

  1. ↑ https://youtu.be/0rGW_Vidtmg?si=ELgxb9usRvODlgqS
  2. ↑ https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/588609-the-ren-and-stimpy-show-time-warp
  3. ↑ https://www.esrb.org/ratings/115/the-ren-stimpy-showtime-warp/

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