Regular Show: Mordecai and Rigby in 8-Bit Land

I never watched the Regular Show. I grew up with the late 1990s/ early 2000s Cartoon Network shows, though that’s not to say I can’t appreciate good cartoons, and I was happy to give this game a chance. And now I can confidently describe The Regular Show: Mordecai and Rigby in 8-Bit Land as an uninspired and bland platformer that has little to any cartoonish fun or humour without a hint of nostalgic bias. Following in the footsteps of Mutant Mudds, the game is essentially a boring 2D platformer designed to seem like it could have been on the Super Nintendo. That is, the characters are slow-moving and you’ll die a lot.

Mordecai and Rigby are on a quest to escape 8-Bit land after being sucked into their television set by a cursed cartridge. Whilst Mordecai can double jump, Rigby can move through tight spaces, providing a nice chance for exploration and item hunting in the large and often maze-like levels. Unfortunately this is mixed with poor combat. On the first world you are limited to 2D moving and a traditional head-stomping attack and will be instantly killed by a single hit. You can find an underwear power-up that lets you fire projectiles, but what this amounts to is moving from being extremely vulnerable to basically invincible, and you’ll lose it after the level ends.

Boss fights follow the essential rule of ‘land on its head to make it dead’

Boss fights follow the essential rule of ‘land on its head to make it dead’, but the area you can land on is often maddeningly small. This is a shame, because otherwise the bosses have attacks that are hard to dodge but can be mastered at the cost of a few lives. It often amounts to expertly dodging attacks only to suffer from a cheap death because you were a few pixels too far to the left.

I have read that some of the bosses and level enemies are well liked characters in the TV show. Unfortunately, aside from the game’s noticeably not-funny opening there is no kind of dialogue or interaction between characters, and no real story development. A good retro-style game can mix the fun of old-school platforming with modern capabilities, creating something with retro charm whilst still showing how far we’ve come since our roots. It feels like this game could have been released in the 90s for the capabilities it has, and would’ve been poorly received back then compared to classics like Super Mario World or Earthworm Jim.

There is some fun to be had in the later levels. Whilst at first you can only switch between your two main characters, you eventually gain the ability to morph into a space ship or turn the level into a top-down shooter. To the game’s credit the ability to switch between these modes is fairly seamless. You can literally ‘jump’ into them, providing you land in an area with the right backdrop for the transformation.

Having some potentially brilliant features, but everything else just letting it down is disappointing. When the ‘Irregular’ platforming is introduced the game does become enjoyable if repetitive. The frustration factor, however, is entirely constant, from the levels to the bosses. There is no charm here, which should be one of the game’s biggest features given the popularity of the show it’s based on. Even for fans of the show, this is a game to avoid.