The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthough of THQ's 1992 licensed-based platformer for the NES, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends.

Based on the cartoon from the late 50s/early 60s, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends seemed like a bit of an odd choice of a series to base a line of video games on. That didn't seem to deter anyone, though, and games based on the license were released on the NES, Game Boy, SNES, and Genesis.

I would presume that they were intended to cash-in on some windfall that was expected from the rerelease of episodes on VHS, but by the early 1990s, how many kids were actually familiar with it? (Beyond whatever they took away from Uncle Joey's impersonations on Full House, of course.) I guess something could be said for celebrating the end of the Cold War with an NES game, but I highly doubt that the developers had any political aspirations with this one.

The NES game was developed by Radical Entertainment and published by THQ, both of which had rough reputations on their own, but together formed a powerful one-two punch on the NES with this and Wayne's World. Expectations weren't high for this one, and the game never goes out of its way to convince you otherwise.

It's a straightforward, linear platformer in which you play as your choice of the two titular characters. Bullwinkle has had some money left to him, and the pair have to get to it before Boris and Natasha can steal it out from under them. For whatever reason, this means they'll fighting through a forest, some random buildings, a desert, and a castle. You'd think they would've just bought some plane tickets.

Rocky can fly and Bullwinkle can charge at things with this antlers, and they both can pick up bombs to throw at their enemies. You'll probably find that playing as Rocky is the way to go 99% of the time. He can fly over most obstacles with little penalty to his health, meaning he can easily avoid any hazard thrown in his way. He's a much smaller target than Bullwinkle. Bullwinkle makes for a much harder game - his massive hit-box turns him into a magnet for projectiles, and his dash attack enthusiastically chews through his life gauge. The only real reason you'll ever need to switch to him is to walk up stairs. Rocky can't just fly up them for whatever reason.

Despite the huge balance issues, Rocky and Bullwinkle is an extremely easy and short game. There are several stages, but most can be completed in under a minute, and they all involve moving from left-to-right across generally flat stages. Occassionally there will be a few jumps that need to be made, but that's really about it.

The graphics are very flat and plain to look at, and I think the style was meant to mimic the look of the show, but it comes across as cheap and lazy - though it's no masterpiece, the SNES game achieved the look far more effectively. The sound is obnoxious, though. It features the theme song, but everything shrieks in random beeps and bloops, and the audio glitches, making the music randomly shift in pitch.

The controls are mushy and awkward, and the hit-detection feels off, so jumping on specific platforms or hitting enemies with bombs is more hit-and-miss than it should be. It works, but the inconsistencies made cheap hits a common occurence.

Overall, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends isn't awful (or at least, nowhere near as bad as many make it out to be), but there's no question that the NES has far better to offer than this quick-and-dirty cash-in. It's entertaining for about five minutes, but then you'll be left wondering why you aren't playing something a bit more worthwhile.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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