The most surprising thing about this game is that it’s not just a terrible Rayman knock off – it’s one developed by UbiSoft themselves. The completely lifeless and dull Ed was even made by the designer of Rayman. Tonic Trouble seems like it was a stepping ground for Rayman 2, a way to test out 3D platforming and game engines. However, due to delays, Tonic Trouble ended up coming out less than two months before Rayman 2.

The level design in Tonic Trouble is completely unappealing. For the most part, it consists of random small rooms with “portals” connecting them. It feels like lots of miniscule individual levels instead of a connected world – everything is completely disconnected, especially as rooms don’t stick to the same style within each level. Because of this, it never feels like you’re exploring or discovering anything new, it’s just enter a new room and do the next tedious challenge. Sometimes, you don’t even appear somewhere with the return portal behind you, it’s a bit of a mess.

There are a couple of exceptions: a few long corridor areas. These are generally sections with lots of incredibly slow moving floating platforms, or one level focusing on the glide ability, but even there you need to load new rooms, as the game can’t cope with all of it in one go.

The biggest issue with Tonic Trouble is the camera. There are three options and none of them work. In many places, the camera is locked and attempting to move it results in a loud, annoying sound effect. The locked placements are never logical, either, and make it impossible to see gaps between platforms. It makes platforming an absolute nightmare – which is a major issue in a platformer.

One really odd example of camera placement was going though a portal and being put in a short corridor with a portal in front of you. The camera is locked, so you obviously go forwards. Turns out, this portal takes you somewhere a few rooms earlier. Even worse is that you have to re-do a boss fight to get back. What you’re actually supposed to do is go backwards, which leads to a larger part of the room. It’s quite baffling.

On top of all this, Ed just doesn’t control very well, and his powers are quite uninteresting. You start off with just a jump and being able to eat popcorn to turn into “super Ed”, who is much stronger and can attack. This only lasts for a short time, though, and is usually only used to get through a door. You don’t get any more transformations until very late in the game (and they all just have a limited use). This really should have been more of the game, giving it more of its own identity.

You get a stick for a basic attack and being able to activate switches, a blowgun for shooting (which is unwieldy, but luckily the game gives you an obscene amount of ammo), and a fish bowl to swim underwater. The most significant move is probably the glide, which controls better than Ed on foot, but still isn’t great – and like with other abilities, it gets used heavily for one level, then is barely seen after tgat.

Tonic Trouble is a very tedious platformer that has no idea what it wants to be. It seems to be a melting pot of ideas that formed its way into a game, with all the refinements going to a different project instead. It seems clear that this was given much less attention, once UbiSoft decided that a 3D Rayman was the right thing to do.

Fine

It’s platforming at its most uninspiring, and isn’t made any better by the tedious level quests. Ed’s life revolves around scampering along pre-defined routes, pressing the odd switch and – very occasionally – thwacking an animated bad guy. The ugly purple chap’s ever-increasing range of abilities is never exploited – there’s one stage that takes advantage of his flying abilities, but otherwise abilities such as pogoing, swimming and pea-shooting are entirely wasted.

Mark Green, N64 Magazine #33. Review Score: 55%

Remake or remaster?

Perhaps if there’s a classic Rayman collection, this can be a included as a bonus, with a better camera.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Tonic Trouble.