tiny toon adventures 2 for gb

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---
title: "Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Montana's Movie Madness"
date: 2023-03-26T20:47:00+02:00
score: 1
howlongtobeat_id: 12759
howlongtobeat_hrs: 1.5
game_name: "Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Montana's Movie Madness"
game_genre: '2D Platformer'
game_release_year: 1993
game_developer: 'Konami'
---
Barely a year after the adequate but far from impressive [Tiny Toon Adventures: Babs' Big Break](/games/gameboy/tiny-toon-adventures-babs-big-break), Konami takes a shot to redeem itself with _Montana's Movie Madness_. The formula does not change: it's a 2D platformer based on the _Tiny Toon_ license Konami hopes will still lay golden eggs, it's still very short, and it's still a meagre MBC1 `128 KB` cartridge that in 1993, four years after the Japanese Game Boy launch, really feels like we as consumer are being ripped off.
As a result, _Tiny Toon Adventures 2_ can indeed rightly be called _Madness_. At first glance, you might be inclined to think that, hey, the spritework has been upped, so there must have been effort put in, right? But remember that in the nineties, there was no Analogue Pocket: there were instead hideous ghosting issues with too large sprites. If you fire up a GB debugger, you'll notice that Buster Bunny's sprite in reality takes up **eight** slots of `8x16` sprites, including the long ears!
Granted, this doesn't show on the screenshots, and in fact, it could even be called appealing in some sections of a stage. And yes, the original game also featured bulky sprites, but here, it becomes difficult to guess what will be coming at you due to the tiny screen resolution.
![](space.png "Left: in a space shuttle trying to avoid the pitfalls. Right: stage 3, arrived in space town?")
At least I'm glad Konami fixed the floatyness so the jumping mechanics should be on point. Except that they're not: many jumps require very precise timing, often to the point of you almost floating on top of a gap, standing on the last pixel of the edge, before making the jump. At a certain point in the game, in stage 3, you're required to make a huge jump in your space ship. I simply couldn't cross that gap, not matter what button combination I pressed. Not cool.
Also not cool: enemies are even dumber than in the predecessor. They just stand there, make a few steps to the left and a few to the right. That's it. Huh? In the Samurai stage (2), some dare to throw projectiles at you, but that's about it when it comes to a challenge. I guess the real challenge is crossing those gaps! On top of that, the press-down-to-toggle-run mechanic is clumsy, especially considered in the first game, you press down to... well... duck? I vaguely remember playing this game as a kid and never even making it past stage 2 because of how awkward the run controls work: it's a requirement in certain places to jump higher.
![](inbetweenstages.png "Left: a boring wheel-of-fortune-like minigame. Right: I cleared the first stage!")
The platforming gameplay of _Babs' Big Break_ was broken up by the odd minigame, which also returns in _Montana's Movie Madness_. Unfortunately, the minigames such as a wheel of fortune are simplly not as compelling as in its predecessor. The only thing they've actively improved upon besides the handling of the character is the music. Every stage has its own theme, as Montana plays a different movie where Buster features in. For example, the first stage is a Western, the second one features samurai warriors and takes place in Japan, and the third in space. The tunes do neatly match the atmosphere.
That doesn't make it a better game though. For a 1993 Game Boy game, _Montana's Movie Madness_ is a disappointment; a sloppy cash grab that might have fooled a few parents with its [flashy magazine ads](https://www.mobygames.com/game/5509/tiny-toon-adventures-2-montanas-movie-madness/promo/) trap.
If you owned a SEGA Mega Drive back in the day, you were better off playing Konami's [Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure](https://www.mobygames.com/game/24168/tiny-toon-adventures-busters-hidden-treasure/), released in the same year. Tiny Toon 2 for the Game Boy is not a worthy port nor a worthy successor to the already questionable previous entry.

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The words "four stages" might evoke a ephemeral feeling, and that's because it does: _Babs' Big Break_ is a Yet Another Very Short GB game. This might not come as a big surprise to Game Boy connoisseurs, except that by the time the game was released, it was well in 1992, meaning _Kirby's Dreamland_ and [Turtles II](/games/gameboy/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-back-from-the-sewers) were released, and _Super Mario Land 2_ was about to be released (technically January 1993 for us sad Europeans). That means the standards for short and cheap [2D platformers](/tags/2d-platformer) were increasingly being upped.
The debut of _Tiny Toon Adventures_ on the Game Boy is perhaps best compared with Sunsoft's 1992 game [Looney Tunes](/games/gameboy/looney-tunes): both big franchises made by big Japanese license holders where I'm afraid _Looney Tunes_ came out on top, even though this one is a commendable effort. The few stages we're served are varied, the minigames are amusing for as they last, the ability to switch characters on the fly isn't strategically employed but fun to fiddle with, and everything is cheery as it should be.
The debut of _Tiny Toon Adventures_ on the Game Boy is perhaps best compared with Sunsoft's 1992 game [Looney Tunes](/games/gameboy/looney-tunes): both big franchises made by big Japanese license holders where I'm afraid _Looney Tunes_ came out on top, even though this one is a commendable effort. The few stages we're served are varied, the minigames are amusing for as long as they last, the ability to switch characters on the fly isn't strategically employed but fun to fiddle with, and everything is as cheery as it should be.
![](trainminigame.png "Left: on a train, emptied the bricks. Right: a whack-a-mole minigame is about to start.")

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