Uncle Grandpa accidentally shifts his RV into Dimension Break gear and ends up crashing through all sorts of Cartoon Network worlds.  Now it’s up to him, Steven Universe, Finn and Jake from Adventure Time, Gumball, Clarence, and Mordecai and Rigby from Regular Show to fight enemies across all their universes in this arcade style action sidescrolling beat ‘em up.  It’s available for 3DS, PS4, and Xbox One, but reviewed on 3DS here.

There are six worlds with two levels apiece, plus a boss battle for each area.  Each character has weak, strong, and special attacks that they can unlock when you level up.  Collect gems from defeated enemies and destructible objects to gain levels.  Gather healing food items and other power-ups as well.  Switch characters by pressing the L and R buttons or tapping on the touch screen.  Make sure they don’t run out of energy or you won’t be able to use that character for the rest of the level.  Watch out for spots on the ground that can poison, burn, or electrify you.  Some characters’ attacks can nullify these effects.  Gumball’s vacuum cleaner can blow poison away, and Clarence’s soda guns can douse out fires.  Steven Universe can break enemies’ shields easier.  It’s up to you to discover each characters’ strengths and weaknesses.

Unfortunately, the game has quite a few problems that keep it from being truly great.  Hit detection is poor, and the game is awfully repetitive.  Especially since they make you revisit older areas to artificially lengthen the game, and you fight the same old enemies (mostly penguins and banana guards from Adventure Time).  Sometimes they try to mix things up, like in Gumball’s school library level, you can’t attack too many times or the librarian will shush you and you’ll be stunned for a while, but this ends up being more annoying than anything. Worst of all, the game lacks any voices or clips from the shows, which could’ve boosted the game’s personality quite a bit.  Plus a two-player feature would’ve been nice.  Maybe the bigger consoles versions are better?

Kid Factor:

Cartoon Network Battle Crashers is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Cartoon Violence.  You can smack around silly enemies with all sorts of goofy attacks and items, and enemies break into pieces like glass when defeated.  If you’re OK with your kids watching these Cartoon Network shows, they’ll be OK with this game, too.  Reading skill is a must, and younger players may get bored with the game’s repetitiveness and frustrated at the difficulty of later levels.

Tags: Game Reviews, Television