“I’m sorry, but your Gil is in another castle.”
Gameplay
Johnny is your typical hyper active kid. He’s usually the lab rat in the experiments of his two sisters, Mary and Susan. When he intervenes in another one involving a new high-tech gadget, he frees Mr. Wacko, Bling Bling Boy and Brain Freezer and altered Porkbelly, the town they all live in. The bad guys kidnap the sisters’ neighborhood, crush Gil Nexdor and Johnny is sent to save him.
Fans of the Super Mario Bros. series will find many similarities in what Johnny Test offers. Enemies are destroyed by jumping on top of their heads and stages consist of running to the left or right in search of the teleportation device that will zap you to the next stage. Coins are replaced by pizza slices and collecting them gets you extra lives. At the end of each level, you face one of the three villains in a boss battle. Memorizing their patterns is the key to success, but it’s by no means difficult.
Johnny starts out with a limited set of skills, including a speed boost while holding Y and double jumping with the B button. As you complete stages, Johnny finds new abilities like temporary flight with a jet pack or shooting fire and lasers as Johnny X or J Trooper respectively. Eventually you’re given a GPS to help in finding all the power cells that grant those abilities. Once fully powered, taking down foes with the added arsenal is an altogether easier and much more rewarding experience.
Another experiemnt gone wrong.
Johnny Testis a lot of fun to play. Mixing his many abilities together in an attempt to make it through the stages is where this game shines. There are multiple ways to accomplish the “going from point A to point B” premise while collecting all the hidden items. On the other hand, this game is incredibly short. It only has 12 stages spread across three levels. Despite the short length, the game is structured for some minor replay ability. Once you acquire some of the later abilities like the jet pack and each suit’s abilities, you’re able to go back and collect items that were previously just out of reach in earlier stages.
Graphics/Video
Johnny Test is a side scrolling platformer featuring a mix of 3D characters on 2D backgrounds. Enemies are pretty basic: wandering turkeys, samurai warriors or snowmen that vary in size depending on the stage’s theme. The backgrounds are a bland mix of single colors with little variation. This is a very simple looking game. On the other hand, the animations in between the stages look very similar to the show. Johnny, his two sisters and his dog Dukey spend time trash talking each other and the villains while they slowly reveal the story along with tidbits about the next stage you’ll be traveling through.
Audio/Sound Effects
In addition to the simple graphics mentioned above, Johnny Test features a simple soundtrack as well. You’ll hear the same shredding guitar sound in each stage regardless of theme. The in between level animations are just screaming to have the original voice cast, but sadly we’re only given pop up strings of text that don’t add any emotion to the game.
Overall
Johnny Testis a fun, albeit very short platformer with many elements ripped straight out of Super Mario Bros. series. It’s fun using Johnny’s many abilities to find all of the hidden items in each stage, but it’s so short that you’ll have this one done in a weekend.
ComicsOnline gives Johnny Test on Nintendo DS 3 out of 5 invincible dogs.
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