TaleSpin (Genesis) Playthrough

A playthrough of Sega's 1992 license-based platformer for the Sega Genesis, TaleSpin.

Played through as Baloo on the normal difficulty level.

When I decided to do a playthrough of this game, I was looking for a game like Greendog (   • Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude! (G...  ). Something with summer vibes that was sunny, bright, and full of steel drums. After standing at the shelf weighing my options for an inordinate length of time, I finally decided on TaleSpin, and when I plugged it in, I was instantly taken aback by how perfectly it seemed to match what I was looking for.

As it turns out, there's good reason for the similarities: Greendog and TaleSpin were both created by Interactive Designs, the studio that became known as Sega Interactive once Sega of America acquired the company in late 1992, and who had made the TaleSpin (   • TaleSpin (TurboGrafx-16) Playthrough  ) and Darkwing Duck games for the TurboGrafx-16 a year prior.

In TaleSpin, as either Baloo or Kit (or both in the 2P co-op mode), it's your job to beat Shere Khan's company in a race that'll determine who will be awarded a permanent work contract with the city of Cape Suzette. To win, you need to collect ten pieces of cargo from eight cities across the world and safely deliver them to Cape Suzette within seven days, all while fighting your way through throngs of Don Karnage's mercenary band of air pirates.

The collect-a-thon style level layouts are less linear than Greendog's more straightforward designs, but at a glance, TaleSpin could pass as a Greendog spinoff. The slightly offbeat calypso rhythms, the pixilated green blotches of foliage, and the large and awkwardly animated character sprites all immediately feel familiar.

It doesn't feel as well put together, though. The hit detection is all over the place - sometimes an enemy dies in a single hit, and other times it takes several attempts before any damage registers - and the stages are full of objects and walls in the foreground that intentionally obscure paths and enemies. The 1P game is also virtually impossible to finish as Kit since the AI controlling the plane in the flying stages will constantly drag you through thick clusters of enemies, leaving you without any reasonable means to defend yourself.

The quality of the graphics and sound are pretty inconsistent throughout, too. The first stage looks reasonably nice, but the blue and green backdrop in the giant maze level about halfway through looks like it came straight out of an NES game, and the amateurish cutscenes look they were pulled from a bootleg cart, not a Sega-published game based on a Disney IP. Had the game come out in 1989, it would be easier to overlook the presentation's shortcomings, but it's all pretty underwhelming for a 1992 release.

Sega's TaleSpin isn't a disaster rivaling the likes of Fantasia (   • Fantasia (Genesis) Playthrough - Nint...  ), but it is pretty disappointing. If you want a good TaleSpin game, you're much better off with Capcom's 1991 NES take (   • Disney's TaleSpin (NES) Playthrough  ).
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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