Just like Rayman 1 and 2, Tonic Trouble had a Game Boy Color version. Actually, this one came first and released around six months after the N64 version, whereas they came years after their progenitors. It was handled by a company called RFX Interactive and was in fact their first game. I was expecting a similar experience to said Rayman handheld titles, but it was not to be.

Tonic Trouble GBC runs on a completely different engine to those games. It has larger sprites, a wonkier camera and unlockable abilities (like its parent game). Of course, the GBC has even less buttons than the N64, so switching between the stick, blowpipe, magic wand/chameleon powder, and pogo stick requires opening and closing the Select menu which is clunky, especially in the final level since the blowpipe is required for combat but does not allow jumping. At least the pogo stick gets more use for traversal in this version. Ed also has a ledge grab ability—handy but not perfectly reliable—and can run by double-tapping the D-pad, which is not necessary but helps in backtracking for collectibles or switches.

The number of levels is cut back compared to the main game, and it ends up being very short in total. Each world has 3 smallish areas, which are often sort of free-roaming, with collectibles to find requiring platforming and combat both vertically and horizontally. It works pretty well, but enemy placement, large sprites, and spotty hit detection makes it very difficult at times—I made heavy use of savestates, naturally.

The large sprites allow for more detail and it looks pretty nice if a bit muddy at times, with lots of colour befitting its source material. The music is a tad more melodic but nothing special and still forgettable. An interesting point of comparison though in the conversion is the boss fights. Some are decent smaller renditions of setpieces from the main game, but others make use of enemies seen in cutscenes or artwork but not fought, such as the living capsicum or Grögh’s pharmacist. Good stuff!

Unfortunately the plot suffers on the GBC platform. Suzy is missing, Grögh has no presence apart from the final moments, the purpose of Doc’s collectibles is not even explained. At least Agent Xyz has gets an ugly full-frame portrait with advice and exposition. I suppose in those days the manual would be a crutch, but it hasn’t been scanned that I could find.

So it’s a reasonably competent little down-porting job, but probably surpassed by the Rayman GBC demakes that followed it. Fair enough, they were done by different companies. It was early days for Ubisoft’s handheld games. It is a little amateurish and small in scope, befitting a small company’s first game, but I can forgive dodgy execution because it was over quickly. Hm, is that really a good thing? Regardless, if nothing else getting to fight the Pharmacist justifies this game’s existence. Just expect frustration if you’re not allowing yourself an emulator’s conveniences.

EDIT: I forgot to mention a feature I couldn’t experience. Ubisoft’s GBC games often had a “Ubikey”; where by collecting a key in-game and then connecting to another Ubikey-enabled game via the GBC infrared port, you could unlock stuff—in this case, a bonus level. Since I don’t have access to the hardware, it’s a feature that’s lost to the ages… game preservation is a struggle sometimes.