Disney’s Tarzan
Score: 85% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: SCEA/Disney Developer: Eurocom Media: CD/1 Players: 1 Genre: Action/ Platformer (2D)
Graphics & Sound: “Walt Disney Pictures Presents” on the cover should give it away, but for the slow ones in the audience, Tarzan the game looks awesome. If this is the new standard for Disney-licensed games, I’ll take all they got. Incredible backdrops, clean animations, beautiful lighting, and baby’s-bottom-smooth polygons make up the graphics. With a sense of depth reinforced by foreground-background movement, this isn’t your Daddy’s side-scrolling platformer. Along with plenty of ambient jungle sounds, the music is tasteful and sparse. During the many well-placed cut-scenes taken directly from the movie, we’re even treated to Phil Collins’ original soundtrack. Nice, as long as you like Phil Collins. The decision to include so much animation from the movie (I’m guessing 15-20 minutes total) really adds value and context to the game.
Gameplay: Though interesting in its look, Tarzan is still a platformer. Objectives for each level involve gathering tokens, letters that spell TARZAN, sketch pages, and weapons. The only weapons are a knife and multi-colored fruit. The knife is almost always at the beginning of each level, but you can’t carry fruit from one level to another. I found this a little irksome, but not a huge drawback. Tokens are needed to complete a level at 100%, probably the most challenging goal. TARZAN letters earn you movie clips after you’ve completed each level, and the sketch pages earn you a bonus level. There are five bonus level variations, with several character variations. Yeah, you don’t always play as Tarzan! Among 13 regular levels, there’s both Boy and Man Tarzan, plus Jane, Terk, and Tantor. Tarzan is the most developed character in terms of moves, but the variety is nice. Enemies abound, but I was a little troubled to see they are mostly cute furry animals! Sure there are the occasional crocodile and leopard, but who enjoys killing leopard cubs, frogs, and coatis? I’m surprised that made it through the Disney censors, really...
Difficulty: I’m about average as platformer-jocks go, and I finished on Easy in four to five hours. Getting through the levels is a breeze, but getting all the tokens and goodies is trickier. There are only two boss stages, and the final level is quite a bit more difficult than anything else in the game. You’re going to work pretty hard to earn the “Finished on Hard” movie. There aren’t too many cheap deaths, but control feels mushy at times, making it hard to time jumps and throws. Plus, the controller setup is too limited; I never found a configuration that fit just right. Bottom line: Tarzan provides a fair challenge, but is generally easy enough to let you just sit back and enjoy playing.
Game Mechanics: Tarzan’s moves are pretty simple: running, jumping, vine-swinging, tree-surfing, and ground-pounding. The swinging and surfing are fun, but it’s almost too hard to pick up tokens while surfing. The vine-swing does a lot to open up secret areas, so don’t be afraid to launch yourself into space. Surfing and swinging mainly raise the issue of analog vs. digital. I liked analog overall, but thought it was much easier in some places to use the D-Pad. There’s a reason why most platformers are not analog compatible, and I’m not sure I would have missed analog if I didn’t have it for Tarzan. Dual Shock was awesome, though, and in all the right places. On weapons, the option to throw fruit overhand or underhand seemed a little silly to me. It didn’t really make much difference and could have alleviated one button. Same with the knife stab vs. swipe. The stab didn’t do much for me. Maybe a case of designers getting a little trigger happy? Disney’s Tarzan is a great game, and will appeal to folks who never thought they’d like a platformer. It will win over anyone who has given up on movie-license games, and is just a ton of fun to play. For platformer veterans who want a look, I’d suggest a rental, only because you’ll beat it in a weekend. For everybody else, especially parents, skip the home video and buy this game for you and/or your kids.
-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock
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