Cartoon Network Battle Crashers Switch Review – Just Watch the Cartoons

<p>The Cartoon Network has often had assorted hits on their hands&colon; shows that appeal to younger kids and the kids in all of us&period; Over the last few years in particular&comma; they have had a number of successes&semi; shows like <em>Adventure Time<&sol;em>&comma; <em>The Regular Show<&sol;em> and <em>Steven Universe<&sol;em> easily come to mind&period; The shows have likable characters&comma; are generally well-written&comma; and designs that appeal to kids but often have humour that&&num;8217&semi;s made for adults as well&period; With the selection of characters and universes&comma; you would think that these shows would lend themselves to making for a great beat&&num;8217&semi;em up adventure type game like <em>Cartoon Network&colon; Battle Crashers<&sol;em>&period; Sadly&comma; you would be wrong&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;youtube&period;com&sol;watch&quest;v&equals;V7ZF8RdwjKc<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>What little story there is in <em>Cartoon Network&colon; Battle Crashers<&sol;em> goes down as follows&period; Uncle Grandpa&comma; who is easily the character that I knew the least about&comma; somehow manages to road trip through different dimensions&period; As he goes through these different dimensions&comma; which are essentially the different Cartoon Network shows&comma; he manages to wrangle up other characters to join him on his trip&period; You have Finn and Jake from <em>Adventure Time<&sol;em>&comma; Steven Universe&comma; Gumball&comma; Clarence and Mordecai and <em>Rigby from the Regular Show<&sol;em>&period; After your team has been assembled&comma; you go and fight a number of enemies&comma; in order to get back home&period; That&&num;8217&semi;s basically the extent of it&comma; and I feel like I expanded more on the story than the game often seemed to do&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;132116" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-132116" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-132116" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;11&sol;27184615&sol;3111227-1-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-132116" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Cartoon Network&colon; Battle Crashers&comma; Maximum Games and GameMill Entertainment<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>At its core&comma; <em>Cartoon Network&colon; Battle Crashers<&sol;em> is a classic beat&&num;8217&semi;em up&period; You walk from left to right&comma; just hitting waves and waves of assorted enemies with your basic attacks and a couple other special moves&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s a bit of an experience system in place that levels up your characters at the end of the level based on how much they were used&comma; but after a few levels&comma; there&&num;8217&semi;s not much else to unlock&period; You&&num;8217&semi;ll also encounter a couple of other characters that again&comma; are unlockable after a few levels&comma; and then that&&num;8217&semi;s it&period; The worlds are generally two levels and then a boss level&comma; and often you have to replay some levels a few times to get items needed to take on the boss&period; This seemed like a pretty uninteresting way to extend the life of the game&comma; by forcing you to play through these mundane levels over and over&period; The characters all have some unique aspect to them&comma; but if I didn&&num;8217&semi;t need to specifically use any of them&comma; I would just use Finn and Jake as they seemed to be a fair bit more powerful than the others&period; While this game is a beat&&num;8217&semi;em up&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s also a pretty bad one&comma; as in it just felt pretty bland&period; The combat was pretty stale&comma; and I usually just wanted the levels to be over and done with so I could move on&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The graphics in <em>Cartoon Network&colon; Battle Crashers<&sol;em> are pretty good&period; The levels are generally fairly vibrant&comma; and evoke the tone of the appropriate shows&period; The characters and enemies also look decent&comma; and there&&num;8217&semi;s a nice bit of scaling so if you&&num;8217&semi;re in the foreground&comma; the characters are bigger than in the background&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s not much&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s something that gives you a hint that maybe someone in development cared about this game at some point&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>However&comma; the most glaring omission is easily the general lack of voice work&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s basically none at all in the entire game&comma; not while fighting or even in cutscenes&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s a game based on these animated characters&comma; and they look like they do on the shows&comma; so why in the world would they not spend any time or money on getting the voice actors to do some voice work&quest; It&&num;8217&semi;s just mind-boggling honestly and feels like a total copout by the developers and Cartoon Network to just push out a budget title to capitalize on the popularity of the shows&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;132117" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-132117" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-132117" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;11&sol;27184707&sol;cartoon-network-battle-crashers-screen-09-ps4-us-15aug16-1024x576&period;jpeg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-132117" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Cartoon Network&colon; Battle Crashers&comma; Maximum Games and GameMill Entertainment<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>While playing the game however&comma; I did get to play a bit of it with my son&period; He often plays games on the Switch and loves using the Joy Cons as little controllers whenever he can&period; He&&num;8217&semi;s 5&comma; but he&&num;8217&semi;s familiar with some of the shows represented here&comma; especially <em>Adventure Time<&sol;em>&period; He often wanted to be Finn and Jake&comma; which was fine&comma; and that led to me using the other characters to take on the few little challenges the game throws at you&period; In general though&comma; even he got bored after playing for a little while&comma; and would maybe laugh at some of the characters here or there&comma; but otherwise didn&&num;8217&semi;t seem to be enjoying the game that much&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>When all is said and done&comma; <em>Cartoon Network&colon; Battle Crashers<&sol;em> is just a terrible game&comma; and a poor use of a license&period; The game could easily be so much better&comma; with some tweaks to the upgrade system and some voice work&comma; but as it is&comma; the game is too short&comma; too bland&comma; and just has no soul&period; It will take you a few hours to beat it&comma; but there is little reason to go back to it&period; In the end&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;re better spending a few hours just watching some episodes of <em>Adventure Time<&sol;em> or <em>Steven Universe<&sol;em> instead of playing this uninspired use of fantastic contemporary cartoons&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>A review copy of Cartoon Network&colon; Battle Crashers was provided via digital code from Maximum Games and GameMill Entertainment for the purpose of this review&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;