Genre: Platform – Puzzle

Publisher: Kemco

Total time played: 2 hours

Short review: A simple puzzle game spread across 60 levels where the goal is to collect the carrots and not touch Sylvester, Wile-E-Coyote, Daffy Duck or Yosemite Sam.

Interesting links related to The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle

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• Video Review (Angry Video Game Nerd)

Can I compare this game to Pac-Man?

While playing through this game I kept thinking to myself that it was fairly similar to Pac-Man. Each level consists of a room full of stairs and doorways (maze in Pac-Man). There are carrots scattered around the room (pellets in Pac-Man) that you must collect and there are bad guys in the form of Looney Tunes characters (ghosts in Pac-Man) that you must avoid. If you touch a bad guy you lose a life and have to start the level over. If you collect all the carrots you move on to the next level and receive an extra life. The game is kind of a puzzle game and kind of a cat and mouse game.

I need to get that carrot without touching those bad guys.

How to Play

Stairs – hit up to go up the stairs, hit down to go down the stairs.

Doorways – There are two doorways in the game, one door which appears to have a set of stairs inside of it and one that is just a black opening. These stairwells connect, if you hit up on the door with the stairs you will go inside and appear in the door that is all black. If you hit down on the black door you appear in the doorway with the stairs.

Pipes – These work exactly the same as the doorways, up goes up a pipe and down goes down a pipe. The difference is, to know where the pipe leads you have to follow the pipe path on the screen.

Carrot Juice – a small bottle that makes you invincible for a short time. If you run into a bad guy when you are invincible they fall over and disappear.

Boxing glove – If you pick up a boxing glove you tap the B button to shoot it across the stage in front of you. If it comes into contact with a bad guy he falls over and disappears.

Anvil, box, safe – These items can be pushed into an enemy or pushed off a ledge onto an enemy, either way the enemy falls over and disappears.

Carrot with a circle and slash – this is a tricky item. When you pick it up it appears Bugs dies, but he is taken to a bonus level. If you complete the bonus level you receive 3 extra lives, if you fail the bonus level (which I almost always did) you are taken back 3 levels in the game.

Level Design

There isn’t a lot of variety in this game (really only 2 level designs), but as the levels are all very short I still enjoyed playing as every 2-3 minutes I made tangible progress towards the final stage (level 60).

The only two different looks you get throughout the 60 levels.

One Major Flaw

The one major flaw of the game is the control. Bugs continues to move after you stop hitting the right/left button. If you begin going down stairs and realize that you are going to bump into Sylvester at the bottom you can’t turn around and go back up the stairs. If you are trying not to walk off of a ledge you better gently tap the directional buttons because if you hold them down and then let go you are going to move about 2-3 steps before Bugs finally stops. The game was easy enough that this never really became an issue but if the game had been 10% harder it would have been controller throw annoying.

The superior Bugs Bunny game

Even though Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout offers more variety in gameplay (barely), is longer and has more characters it features an infuriating refresh rate that makes playing it almost vomit inducing. The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle has a very smooth refresh rate and is easy on the eyes. Even though the game doesn’t have much variety or challenge it is a simple game that is moderately fun. I would almost go as far as to say it is slightly educational as you have to think about the path you need to take in each level. Most levels you can do it in one try but a few are like chess games where you need to think a minute. Of course, the game has unlimited continues and you start on the stage you died on so there really isn’t a penalty for messing up.

I put off playing this game because 60 stages sounded daunting, but the stages are short and fairly easy so I plowed through this slightly better than average game in just 3 sittings of around 40 minutes each.

I’ve got to give a shout out to Arnpoly at www.takeontheneslibrary.com who gave me the suggestion to play this game. Life has gotten hectic recently and I haven’t had much time to devote to the NES, this game was able to be played in small doses so it didn’t interfere much with my day to day activities.

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