Rugrats: Scavenger Hunt (or Rugrats: Treasure Hunt) is a simplified clone of another N64 board game – but it’s not Mario Party. Bizarrely, this is heavily based on the Japan-only Detective Club 64 [Kira to Kaiketsu! 64 Tanteidan]. It features three modes, two of them based on searching rooms.

Like Detective Club 64, you spin and get to move that amount of spaces. You can pick which direction you want to go (except backwards), but you want to aim for the magnifying glass spaces.

Here, you pick a random object from the room to search, hoping to get an object you need. You can also find items to help you in your quest, such as the ability to search twice every time you land on a search space, and the ability to turn around at the start of the turn. Other items can also just be junk.

Other spaces include gaining and losing cookies (which are used to buy cards), a space to buy cards, one to recover energy (run out and you’ll miss a turn), and spaces that send you to your crib, but you can pick which room to warp to on your next turn.

The first board is a co-op mission where the babies have to find all their pieces before Angelica does (NPCs move around at the end of each round), while the second is competitive, with each baby trying to collect a set of treasure. If you land on a spot with another baby, you can fight them to steal one of their pieces. I described the battle system in Detective Club 64 as a kind of “rock, paper, scissors”, but this is just rock, paper scissors.

The third board is unbelievably tedious. This ditches the search mechanic, and the board is a series of circles, removing all choice. Here, you have to collect three kinds of sweets, but you need an immense amount of them (and can lose them), so it goes on forever, with you having zero say in what’s going on.

The first two boards might keep young kids occupied (and you can choose the size of the board to adjust length), as long as they don’t get bored from repetitiveness, or annoyed that it’s entirely luck based, but this is just a poor licensed game.

Poor

Like South Park, seeing your favourite TV stars come alive on the N64 (no matter how hopelessly) is fun for a while. But there’s nothing here to justify spending £40 on, especially when you can find Ludo in the Argos catalogue for a sixth of the price.

Mark Green, N64 Magazine #33. Review Score: 48%

Remake or remaster?

This game is nothing special.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to buy Rugrats: Scavenger Hunt