Back in the early 90's Konami had the licence to the fun 'Tiny Toons' cartoon. Rather than release the same game on the Megadrive and Super NES, they made 2 very different games.
'Busters Hidden Treasure' was released for the Megadrive. The game was a platformer, spread over 33 different stages, with a Super Mario World style world map you use to traverse the levels. Many levels had alternate exits leading to harder levels. The plot was basic, but ok, it saw you as Buster Bunny heading to a Island to search for treasure buried there. Montana Max also headed there, and with a Scientest's help he attempts to get to the treasure before Buster.
The game was quite typical in that you killed enemies by leaping on thier heads. If you moved long enough you would break into an insane run which let you slide tackle the enemies. The games locations were varied, and split into seperate groups of themed levels. Starting off in the grasslands with the familier Tiny Toons theme as the background music , it led to dark forests, dank caves, snowy mountains, and a big factory. The levels were well designed, and lots of variety to what you did, with underwater levels in which you swam, to levels full of zip lines, and elevators.
The end of each group of levels see you fight a boss. This usually involves one of the characters from the show such as Dizzy Devil, Plucky Duck etc attacking you while under mind control from a creepy looking scientest.
Lots of characters from the series make appearances, as bosses, special moves (think the mortar from Streets of Rage), and enemies. A real fun game.
'Buster Busts Loose' was released for the Super NES. The game was set over 6 or 7 levels. It looked really good, and had great music. As far as I can tell the game has no plot. Most the levels are set as if they are a film, so theres a Western themed level, a level set in a haunted house, and even a level which is basically Star Wars, complete with Storm Troopers, and a Darth Vader look alike boss. The problem with this game is there is a total lack of any coherance to the levels, they have nothing in common, and just seem really disjointed and random. Also some of the levels are really short, such as the bizarre American Football level.
Rather than being able to jump on enemies heads, Buster defeats enemies by doing a weird floaty somasault kick at them. In this game also he can run, and slide tackle enemies, and has a cool move whereby he can run up walls as long as his stamina gauge holds out. Again characters from the cartoon are used as bosses, and as enemies.
After each level is a randomly generated bonus game where you can earn extra lives. At the time I thought this was ace, but playing it recently I have realised it is actually really boring. You earn lives by playing bingo, or other similer style mini games.
The game is good, but is not great. Too short, and just not as fun or entertaining as the Megadrive version. The winner therefore is...the Megadrive version. Thier all so cheap nowadays you might as well get both versions though. I also remember the Gameboy Tiny Toons game being ace, and the NES one looks real good.
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I used to play the football level in Buster Bust's Loose over and over and over. I still enjoy it more than Madden, lol.
Buster Bust's Loose was a great game, I still have it, though I haven't played it in over a decade probably.
Two completely different games. Weird that they didn't just port one of them.
I only really played Buster's Hidden Treasure but I always wanted Buster Busts Loose. Still I lapped up any Tiny Toons games I could get back in the day. The Gameboy Tiny Toons game was awesome!
Also damn right it's called the Mega Drive, none of this genesis rubbish!
I never played the Snes one but Buster's Hidden Treasure was so much fun. I bought a mega-drive because of this game.
Haha nice. I wrote an article a month back on how great Buster Busts Loose was: I really enjoyed it, and the mini-games were just gold.
I enjoyed Buster Busts loose a bit more, and I find it sad that you didn't like the game that much!
@Anus Mcphanus - yeah I thought about putting 'Genesis' in brackets, but then thougt nah. Megadrive is a much better name in my humble opinion, or I guess Mega Drive as the console calls itself.
@Nic128 - I remember I used to stare at the screen shots of the game in Mean Machines Sega all the time, I thought it looked so amazing, I miss the days where I wanted a game so badly it actually hurt. I think the last game to make me feel like that was Bioshock.
@Magnalon - I think its cause I have had the Megadrive one for over a decade, while I only recently re-brought the Super NES one, so I found it didn't live up to my rose tinted memories of it!
I remember Buster Busts Loose. Fun times. I never played the Genesis one, which is ironic because I was a Genesis child. I played the SNES one at a friend's house often but every time I went into Blockbuster to rent something I would hover over the Genesis one then pass over to something else.
@Happyhead - Well, let's say I got the megadrive + Buster's hidden Treasure for Christmas. And I do remember doing the "n64 kid reaction" a lot as a kid. (Me (kid) : YEEESSS) :)
I prefer Genesis purely because it reminds me of that band with Phil Collins in it.
I actually still have the retail copy of the Genesis game. It's still something I enjoy playing once in a blue moon, even though a lot of minor things annoy me, like the password entry being so long and the last few levels have a bunch of things everywhere that can kill you in one hit. It was a wonder I could beat it when that originally came out.
Buster Busts Loose, I never actually owned but I played at one time. It was alright, but after the train portion of level 2, it really felt like it started to drag on and I wasn't really compelled to go beyond that point. But since I knew the game was so short, I played on anyway. It never stuck with me since I didn't find it too great but I had small bursts of fun with it.
You know what was a fun Konami-developed game based on a cartoon presented by Steven Spielberg? The Genesis version of Animaniacs. Do something on that when you get the chance.