Bumblejinks Reviews: Toontown Online VS Toontown Rewritten
Does Rewritten stack up to the original?
Hello everybody. Welcome back to the blog. Today, we're going to take a little detour from the usual reviews I do to tackle a subject that people have been asking me to do literally since I started doing Bumblejinks Reviews: "How does Toontown Rewritten stack up to the original Toontown Online?" On the most basic level, Rewritten is pretty much the exact same game as Online, minus a few changes that Rewritten made over the original game ( especially since the most recent update ). But then I got to thinking: There's got to be more going on here then most people are seeing. And it's for sure that Rewritten has made a few changes from the original game. But for every 4 great changes that Rewritten brings to the table, there's one thing that's always made me say: "Wait, what, are you serious?" Also, as Toontown is turning 16 years old this year, I think it's high time I dove into this critical question: "Can I recommend Toontown Rewritten to anyone today, despite it's age?" Let's dive into all these questions, and ultimately decide which version of Toontown is better.
For the sake of time, I'll be using the same format that my reviews have had since day one. I will be talking about both game separately within each of the five categories ( Except for The Appeal ), starting with Toontown Online.
I should also mention: I won't be spending this entire review spewing hate towards Disney, or their mistreatment of Toontown Online ( not to say that they don't deserve it ). This review is about whether or not Toontown can stand as a game on it's own in 2019, and Disney's treatment of Toontown Online in it's last couple years of life is irrelevant as to whether or not Toontown Rewritten itself is a good game. So I'm going to have to put aside any bias I may have against Disney.
Oh, also, I should stress this: I will be spoiling Toontown Rewritten's story ROTTEN in this review, so if you want to avoid any spoilers and figure stuff out on your own, don't say I didn't warn you: SPOILER ALERT!!
First off, let's talk about THE PLOT: Toontown Online. And I'll be frank, this games got one heck of a plot tied to it, although %90 of it isn't required to get the most out of the game. The only thing you get that's even REMOTELY close to a plot that you'll end up caring for is that the Cogs are evil and you need to stop them, and Scrooge McDuck, a well established Disney character, along with Gyro Gearloose, was somehow involved in how they came to be. It's kind of weird for what many consider the pioneer of kid-friendly MMORPG's. However, the game more then made up for the lack of story with the gameplay ( with a few glaring exceptions I'll cover later ), so I can forgive it for this. What's interesting to note is that several of that Toontown Rewritten takes many of the story aspects from Toontown Online and expands upon them. Heck, there's plot details in here that even I never knew of, and I've been playing this game over 10 years! That just shows how poorly Toontown Online's story was set up. The Toon Elections weren't even seen IN the game, so that alone is a pretty big red flag that something was wrong here.
As for THE PLOT: Toontown Rewritten, it's still relatively simple, but definitely more fleshed out compared to Toontown Online. Plus it helps to tie up a few loose ends Disney left open with the original game.
Toontown was a relatively peaceful place, full of happy-go-lucky, playful and colorful cartoon animals known as Toons ( duh ). One day, an election was held to determine who the president of the Toon Council would be, with the two competitors being Flippy Doggenbottom, and Slappy Quackintosh.
During the day of the election, Slappy wins the elections, but tragedy strikes when a Cog, a Yesman to be exact, comes down from the sky and causes Slappy to go sad, making him disappear. Flippy is quick to spring into action, however, and destroys the Yesman with a whole cream pie. It's at this moment that the war between the Toons and the cogs begins. After fighting off the attack on Toontown that follows the Yesman's destruction, during which the Director of Ambush Marketing was destroyed and has not been seen again since, Flippy is dubbed the president of the Toon Council, but he takes the role with much reluctance, with the promise that he will resign from the role when Slappy has returned.
From that point on, the story has been developing along with the game as it's development continued. As of the time of this post, it's story has reached the point of the Silly Meter being introduced. And it's likely that the story will continue to grow as the game does.
So while the story in Rewritten isn't A-plus by any standards, it far outclasses Toontown Online by a long shot. And it's still one I enjoy to this day.
Next, let's talk about THE GRAPHICS: Toontown Online. It's no surprise that the game was made and released in 2003, and didn't see any sort of graphical improvements in the 10 years it was in business until it closed down. However, for the time it was released, the graphics were cartoony and full of charm, and definitely made the game visually appealing back in the day.
The backgrounds and environments all look pretty solid on the whole, and the character models all look pretty decent, although the Sellbot and Cashbot Cog suits could have benefited from just a LITTLE more attention to help them look as nice as the Lawbot and Bossbot suits. And sadly, this was something that wasn't fixed in Toontown Rewritten.
If you were to play it today after playing games such as Wizard101, or even Star Wars: The Old Republic, you would be hard-pressed to take the simplistic graphics seriously, unless you were like me and grew up with Toontown back in it's hayday.
Which is where THE GRAPHICS: Toontown Rewritten comes in. Rewritten has taken several steps to improve the visuals from Online, and while the vast majority of the game still uses the same old assets from Online, several objects throughout the game world have been changed to be more visually appealing. The most prominent difference by far has to be the quality of the Toons animations. The Toons animations all blend together much better then they did in Online, in addition to having the animations themselves being much smoother then they were in Online, and it's definitely noticeable how much better animated Rewritten is compared to Online as a result. They even went and did the same thing to all the Cogs.
And what's even better? If you don't like how much smoother and how much better the animations blend together for whatever reason, you have the option to turn it off and return to the original animation blending if you so desire.
As for the visuals of everything else, the developers of Rewritten have promised that the game will be getting a major graphical overhaul compared to the original game at some later point, which I believe they're still working on to this day. The fact that they're going to update the games dated visuals to better stand in 2019 makes me smile as wide as the Grinch ( well... maybe not ).
Overall, while the graphics are VERY dated for 2019, especially when the vast majority of them are simply recycled from Toontown Online, the promise of improved visuals for the entire game helps to balance this issue back in the other direction.
Next on the agenda, THE SOUND: Toontown Online. OH MY GOSH, I love this games soundtrack!
As someone who's been playing Toontown since 2008, I can never get enough of this games music. It's so cartoony and silly, and on top of that, memorable. The music from the Pick-A-Toon screen is still one of my favorite tracks in Toontown history, and has been collectively burned into my brain for all eternity.
A lot of the games other tracks are fantastic to me as well. The regular street battle theme is still one of my favorite tracks to listen to, and I can't get enough of the Toontown Central street theme.
Of course, just as the music can be happy, cheerful and energetic at times, it can also be downright creepy. Particularly in regards to the Cog HQ battle theme. There's a good reason why many people get bad vibes every time they hear that song. The tracks that play in Bossbot HQ are pretty spooky, too, which fits the HQ much better in Rewritten, given the new HQ design.
Now, I won't lie, not every song in Toontown Online is a homerun hit. I can't stand the Brrrgh street theme to save my life. And considering this is where one of the longest and most infamous ToonTasks takes place ( for the majority of it anyway ), that's not something I can easily forgive. And don't even get me started on the Minnie's Melodyland street theme. Who exactly was playing that piano at such a high-pitched tone? My ears are going to throw up!
And then there are the sound effects. They walk a fine line between being really great and being somewhat mediocre. I realize this is another artifact of the game coming out in 2003, but I can't help but be distracted by the sound effects overall.
Most of the gags sound absolutely fantastic, which makes them so satisfying to use in a battle. But there are those exceptions. The fire hose doesn't sound very good, and the squirt gun could have sounded a little less obnoxious. I also would have appreciated it if more of the Cogs attacks actually HAD sound effects to accompany them, such as the sound of paper being folded, a button being pushed when the Cold Caller pulls out a water cooler, an actual sparkle sound effect when a Cog uses Power Trip, etc.
There are also the ambient sounds in the background of all the playground. They sound good, for the most part, although the sound of the trains in Cashbot HQ does get kind of annoying after a while.
Overall, the music is mostly in the green, with a couple of duds here and there, and the sound effects are pretty good on the whole, minus a couple of hiccups I'd love to see Rewritten address in more detail in a future update. And speaking of THE SOUND: Toontown Rewritten, for the most part, it's the same as in Online, with a few exceptions that make it overall better.
The main difference I can see is that several tracks were replaced with brand new songs.
For example, in Toontown Online, the buildings in Daisy Gardens all used the Daisy Gardens street theme. In Rewritten, however, the buildings now use a brand new track composed just for the neighborhood, and it's fan-freaking-tastic!
Cashbot HQ in Toontown Online just reused the Sellbot HQ Courtyard and Sellbot Factory themes from Sellbot HQ, which got the job done. However, in Rewritten, these tracks are replaced with entirely new songs. The new tune that plays in the Cashbot Mint is absolutely AMAZING, and has the Sellbot Factory theme beat by a country mile! It gives me a strong feel of GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64. And I love that game to death, so I have no complaints there.
And then, of course, there's the sound effects. While a bunch of new ones were added to many of the Cogs attacks that help to fix the issue I mentioned previously with Online, a handful of Cog attacks were left exactly as they were in Online, which is really distracting. I'm not sure who's idea this was, but I'm certain this is something that'll get addressed in a future update, so whatever.
At the end of the day, in terms of the sound in Toontown, Rewritten has Online beat by a sizeable margin.
And now, at long last, we move on to THE GAMEPLAY: Toontown Online. OOH BOY, we have a lot of ground to cover here. So let's not waste anymore time and get right to it!
As this game was the pioneer of the kid-friendly MMORPG, it's kept relatively simple to help newcomers to the genre ease into it. But there's still a lot of gameplay mechanics to talk about. So let's start with the actual combat.
Battles in Toontown are turn-based, with both sides taking turns attacking the other. However, unlike, say, Wizard101, the players side ALWAYS GOES FIRST, so there's no need to worry about a Cog attacking first before you do and finishing you off if your low on Laff ( the health of Toons ), just as your going for the killing blow. Believe me, that's happened to me A LOT in Wizard101, and it is the worst thing ever.
Of course, there is the chance that both your attacks and the Cogs attacks will miss. All gags have a set "Accuracy" stat to them, and all the Cog attacks have accuracy as well. Some attacks are more likely to hit them others, and many do more damage then the others. And with factors like same gag track damage bonuses and knockback bonuses ( for lured cogs ) in play, it falls to the Toons to form a battle strategy with their fellow Toons gags in mind and deal with the Cogs accordingly.
Each of the Cogs has a level tied to them as well, and this determines a couple of factors: How much health they have, and how much damage their attacks do. For example, a level 8 Mr. Hollywood's Power Trip attack does 10 damage to all Toons with medium-ish accuracy, while a level 12 Mr. Hollywood can do 20 damage to all the Toons with Power Trip, which has near perfect accuracy. On the flip side, a level 1 cog has 6 health, while a level 12 has 200, so it's up to you to use your gags in the most effective way to deal as much damage to them as is necessary to destroy them before they can attack your team.
Now, this wouldn't be a problem if the battle camera was positioned just a LITTLE better to make seeing the cogs levels and health lights on their chests easier to see. Often times, the cogs levels will be off-screen, especially for the taller ones, which can make it difficult to tell which one your aiming at. I don't care if this game was released in 2003, anything that can cause the player(s) to take unnecessary damage is simply unacceptable.
Another problem is the whole "Knockback" mechanic. I swear, there is next to no consistency with this system! Cogs that have knockback on the streets most likely won't have knockback in the Cog HQs, meaning you have to adjust your strategies accordingly. I'd be lying if I said it hurts the main combat, but it certainly doesn't help in some situations.
Unlike most MMORPG's, which used a standard leveling system you'd expect to see in any RPG, Toontown doesn't feature such a thing. Instead, your gags have experience meters, and as you constantly use them against the cogs, they gain EXP, which eventually leads you to leveling them up.
All gag tracks have 7 levels. You get the level 1 gag when you first get the track, and can eventually get the level 7 gag once you've accumilated 10,000 EXP into that respective gag track. The rest of a tracks gags are given at intervals that depend on the track itself. For example, many gag tracks will require you to get 20-40 EXP to get the level 2 gag. This system works quite well in that it allows you to level up your individual abilities as you see fit. Struggling with a difficult section in a later area? Level up your gags a little!
Gags themselves are easy to get back after use at every gag shop in every playground, with the one exception being the level 7 gags. These are given for every 500 EXP you get, and if you already have the gag, the EXP bar locks at 500, waiting for you to use the gag so it can give the gag to you.
In addition, various other aspects of your character improve as the game goes on. When the game begins, your only allowed to carry up to 40 jellybeans, requiring you to make frequent trips back home to get more if your buying gags constantly. But by the end, you can hold up to 250 beans, meaning you'll rarely be going home exclusively to get more beans. In addition, you begin with the ability to perform only ONE ToonTask ( quest ) at a time. But you can have up to 4 by the end of the game.
But one of the other most important character aspects that improves as the game goes on is Laff ( a pun on the word "Laugh" ), your health in the game. When you begin, it starts at just 15 points. Not a lot by this games standards, as a lot of endgame Cogs can dish out 15 or more damage in a single attack. Luckily, there are many ways to increase it.
The primary way is by doing ToonTasks. This alone guarantees that you break 95 Laff points by the time you reach the third Cog HQ, but if you want too, there are other ways to improve your Laff. This includes: Kart racing, Minigolf, Gardening, Fishing, and of course your Cog disguises.
All of these mini-games give you something to do when the main questing, or ToonTasks, are beginning to get boring. And to be honest, I enjoy them quite a lot. Some moreso then others, but that's kind of to be expected with a game that has this many mini-games to play.
I always get serious Mario Kart vibes when playing the kart racing, and it behaves very similarly to Mario Kart. It controls fairly well and isn't to difficult to learn and master.
The minigolf is exactly what you think it is. It's no different from any other game, right down to the infrequent, but equally annoying collision detection problems you may run into. Every once in a while, the ball will hit a wall and go FLYING across the course, or sometimes it'll just phase right through the hole and fall into the abyss! This doesn't happen often, but it's still annoying when it does.
The gardening itself is pretty cool. On top of planting flowers to increase your Laff meter, you can also plant gag trees, which can make your gags organic. Organic gags have various benefits over regular gags, which can include damage bonuses, accuracy bonuses, and in the case of Toon-Up, it boosts the amount of Laff it heals every other Toon gets back. And the best part is that once the tree has fully matured, which takes longer the higher in level the gag is that you planted, the tree grows more of that gag every day for you to pick. This means that you can get a free level 7 gag of the gag track of your choosing PER DAY, without having to grind the 500 EXP to get it back upon use ( or losing it, whichever comes first )! That is simply genius!
And yes, I said a gag track of your choosing. As in, just ONE gag track. You only get 8 spots to plant gag trees, and removing a lower level gag tree means you lose the organic benefits from the higher level gags of that track, as well as the ability to pick more gags off that tree. So you have to pick which ONE GAG TRACK you want to make organic. This has me wondering what the point of the 8th dirt mound was.
On top of this, it can take AGES to get your shovel skill up from planting flowers because of how long the animation is and how many times you have to do this with each shovel. It can get really repetitive, especially on repeat playthroughs.
Fishing handles pretty interestingly. You click on the button, pull it back to aim it at one of the dark spots in the water with bubbles emerging from it, then release and hope the lure lands in the spot. If it does, you catch something and move on with your day. If not, then you have to try again, assuming you have jellybeans to use for bait.
Sometimes, aside from fish, you have a chance to catch an Old Boot, which acts as a wild card during Fish Bingo events, and even more jellybeans. There are also a bunch of ToonTasks that require you to fish, so you need to learn to master this mechanic as soon as possible.
Also, I may be nitpicking here, but I SWEAR the rarity of some of the fish is way to high! I've only seen a handful of scenarios where people have actually managed to catch a Devil Ray fish; One of the rarest in the game! And if you want the maximum Laff available ( 137 ), you HAVE to catch every single kind of fish! Honestly, don't bother. It isn't worth your time unless you want the bragging rights.
For the most part the fishing works well, although it is prone to the occasional lure flying halfway across the area problem. This mostly happens when the game lags for some reason, which isn't often, but it's pretty annoying nonetheless.
The last activity that provides Laff boosts worth mentioning is the Cog disguises. These are tied to the four Cog HQ's located outside of Toontown. These are, in ascending order from first to last: Sellbot HQ, Cashbot HQ, Lawbot HQ, and finally Bossbot HQ.
Each HQ is packed to the BRIM with Cogs of it's own type ( it makes sense you wouldn't find Lawbots in Bossbot HQ ). Each HQ also has several facilities inside of it where you can perform ToonTasks and work on your Cog disguises. They also feature the bosses chamber, which you need a fully completed disguise and enough of that HQ's promotion item ( merits for Sellbots, cogbucks for Cashbots, jury notices for Lawbots, and stock options for Bossbots ) to enter. This is where the major bosses are located.
Each boss handles differently from the others and requires a different strategy to defeat. For example, the Vice President of the Sellbots ( VP for short ) involves throwing pies at him while running around and dodging attacks, and the Chief Financial Officer ( CFO for short ) requires that you use a bunch of cranes to throw objects at him to damage him, all the while other players are running around and jumping on Goons to disable them so said players on the cranes actually have something to use against the CFO.
All these bosses work remarkably well, though a couple can be a pain in the neck if you don't have sound effects turned on. This is because some of these boss Cogs have a special slam attack that has little to no warning as to when it's coming. If your facing away from the Cog, the only way you will know the attack is coming is if you HEAR the sound of metal scraping right before they do the attack. So you need to have your sounds on to be able to know when to dodge the attack.
There's another problem: The CFO's cranes require a certain skill to use. And outside of the boss fight itself, there's no way to train to learn how to operate the cranes. You just have to jump on one as soon as the final battle against the CFO starts, and try to learn the hard way, and hope your team doesn't go sad in the process!
The other bosses have their issues, too, but at that point I'd just be nitpicking, so I'll leave them alone. Overall, they're fun and challenging in their own way to fight.
There's a handful of other activities that aren't related to boosting your Laff, but I do want to give them a quick mention. The first is parties, which can be accessed from the party gate in every playground. These don't have any real use in the game apart from wasting time, but it's still a nice distraction regardless.
The next thing I should mention is player housing. While it isn't as elaborate as Wizard101 or Pirate101, it's still pretty nice that Toontown thought to include this. HOWEVER, for some reason, many of the clothing your Toons wear, as well as upgrades to their fishing rods, new nametags, and the like, are locked behind the Cattlelog ( notice the pun there? ) from the telephone at your house. The problem here is that sometimes you really want to get something from out of there, but each new issue of the cattlelog takes a full week to arrive, so you could be stuck waiting MONTHS for the issue you want to cycle back around so you can get what it was you missed the previous passover! This would have been the perfect place to put in special stores that sell these items at an increased price once they appear in the cattlelog, guys!
And lastly, there's the act of getting a Doodle ( this games pets ) and training them in various tricks. The more expensive Doodles tend to be better then the cheaper ones, and the more tricks you train them in, the more they'll be able to help you in battle when you call for them to help you.
The real problem is these Doodles tend to take FOREVER to train all their tricks. Just training one Doodle can take SEVERAL MONTHS. It's a massive time sink, and most players often won't even see the task through to the end because of how long it takes. This would have been the perfect place to put in a feature that helps to speed up the process, guys!
Another thing I would like to mention is the Silly Meter. In Toontown Online, it was just there and pretty much did nothing. It's been fleshed out MUCH MORE in Toontown Rewritten, which we'll get to in a minute.
As the game was released in 2003, I can understand and forgive it for using the arrow keys for moving around, but I understand how many players may be turned off by this control setup. Nowadays, using the WASD keys to move and pressing spacebar to jump is pretty much MMORPG design 101. So the fact that up until it's closure in 2013, Toontown Online continued to rely on this clearly inferior control scheme is frankly confusing.
One thing I will NEVER forgive this game for is the fact that certain long streets weren't given shortcuts to cut down on backtracking. Some of the longer streets have shortcuts to make getting from one end of the street to the other a snap, but certain other ones such as Baritone Boulevard or Alto Avenue in Minnies Melodyland, couldn't be bothered. And they're two of the longest streets in Toontown! Look at the in-game map of these streets! There is a PERFECT PLACE to put a shortcut on both of these streets, but I guess the Toontown Online developers couldn't be bothered to put these shortcuts in!
Toontown Online added animated street objects that I SUPPOSE were supposed to help with the Cog battles, but if anything, all they do is slow down the start of the fight long enough for more Cogs to join the battle. And on top of that, they only offer up a +10% bonus to CERTAIN GAGS. And that bonus doesn't even stack with the gags organic bonus! Do I even need to explain why that stinks?
Overall, the gameplay in Toontown Online is the definition of a mixed bag. All of the mini-games are fun and give you something to do when not busy with the main gameplay, and reward you with something for doing them. Be it Laff boosts, or something else entirely. And while they do have their faults, none of these are enough to subtract from the overall appeal of the game. But just when you thought things couldn't get better, THE GAMEPLAY: Toontown Rewritten comes in and proves us wrong! And this is where Rewritten really shines.
Right from the get-go you can tell that the folks developing the game wanted to make an honest effort to fix many of the problems with the original Toontown Online. So to not waste any time, I'll go down a quick checklist of all the improvements that were made.
- Every cog now has knockback, fixing those inconstant knockback issues from the original game.
- A set of windows now appears over the cogs when on the gag selection screen, showing what kind of cog they are, their levels, and their health icons. And there's an option to hide it if you don't like it.
- You now have the option to remap the controls to whatever keys you desire, including WASD and spacebar!
- The Silly Meter now has full functionality as an actual gameplay mechanic, and one that can help you with certain aspects of the game, including the really grind-heavy ones! It also gives endgame players something to do when they're done with everything else.
- There is now an option to hold down a key to walk slowly rather then running, which can be useful when you need to slow down a little in areas where caution is called for, or you need to line up a shot for a pie throw with more precision.
- The gardening animations were both shortened, AND sped up, making gardening less of a chore!
- Doodles have been slightly improved from Toontown Online and no longer cause mass amounts of server lag.
- In boss battles, an exclamation point will now appear when the boss Cog is about to do the slam attack, making it a snap to dodge the attack even with the sound effects turned off.
- The Lure gag has been changed slightly. Using a lower level lure with a higher level lure no longer reduces the gags overall accuracy. This makes it much easier to train lure gags with other players.
- In Toontown Online, there was a glitch in the Chief Executive Officer ( CEO for short ) boss where the golf balls would not slow him down. This glitch went unfixed in that game due to the game being closed, but has been addressed in Toontown Rewritten.
- All cog facilities now give a multiplier on gag EXP, making gag training less of a chore ( But don't use this as an excuse to train level 1 and 2 gags on Big Wigs! ).
- The rarity of rare fish has been DECREASED slightly from Toontown Online.
Right away you can see that Toontown Rewritten makes an overhaul in just about every aspect of the game, with several exceptions. But those exceptions all portray to things I either don't care about, or nobody cared for in Toontown Online, such as field offices. And those are already getting a HUGE Rewritten makeover, so mentioning that here would just be grasping at straws.
Something else worth mentioning is the new Toon colors and species that were added to the game. These new additions really go a long way in helping Rewritten to catch up to, and surpass Toontown Online, and it's fantastic stuff!
Another new thing they added was the ToonFest Grounds, an entirely new area featuring a brand-new character who uses UNIQUE ANIMATIONS not seen anywhere else in collective Toontown history! This single area is absolutely an indication that Rewritten wants to bring us new stuff, and that given time, they can provide it for us!
Alas, not everything was improved for the better. To this day, Rewritten still has not added a way for those new to the CFO to practice operating the cranes outside of the boss battle. Toontown Online did this as well, but the CFO in that game came out nearly 15 years ago ( as of the time of this review ), so what the heck is Rewritten's excuse!?
Another thing is that the player housing has hardly been, if at all, touched up from Online, but I didn't care much for that mechanic in Toontown Online to begin with, so that doesn't really offend me.
And as much as I hate to admit it, the problem of missing something in your cattlelog and having to wait for it to cycle back around hasn't been touched up, either. It's really annoying to get to make a new Toon, know what outfit you want for that Toon, but have to SLOWLY wait for that clothing item to appear again, which can take FOREVER! Toontown Online was SINFULLY guilty of this, and it hasn't been touched up in the slightest in Toontown Rewritten! Good golly, WHY!?
And while I'm at it, the shortcut issue I mentioned before wasn't touched up in the slightest, either. So backtracking in Rewritten is just as obnoxious as before.
Rewritten made a highly noteworthy addition to animated street objects. They still provide a bonus to only certain gags, but they no longer delay the start of the battle, so that's an improvement. HOWEVER, the gag bonus still doesn't stack with the gags organic bonus for some stupid reason. I know this will be fixed in due time, but it's still something that annoys me.
So overall, Toontown Rewritten is a sizeable improvement over Online in terms of the gameplay, despite some GLARING ISSUES that really need to be addressed in a future update.
And at long last, we come to the conclusion, THE APPEAL. How good is Toontown as a game on it's own, and how well does Toontown Rewritten stack up to Toontown Online by comparison? Well, let's begin with what I thought about Toontown as a whole.
When I was a little kid playing Toontown for the first time, it BLEW me away. This was my first MMORPG of all time, and it has stuck with me all these years as I game I can come back to any day, anytime.
But over these past few years, with reviewing experience and some maturity under my belt, I can't help but notice the flaws that Toontown has had since launch day back in 2003. Many of which have gone unchanged in Toontown Rewritten ( as of the time of this review ).
Of course, having such a deep and personal attachment to this game after having played it all these years, I can't help but look at this game with a hint of nostalgia in my eyes. This was the game I sunk most of my time into growing up as a kid. And now I have to look at all the things it did wrong, and continues to do wrong to this day. It really makes me want to let out a loud groan of frustration.
One thing I failed to mention is how short this game can be. The main ToonTasks, and all four Cog bosses, can all be done in only a month. Perhaps shorter, which means seasoned players of Toontown Online had little reason to stick around after they beat the CEO and finished the game, aside from satisfying their completionist quota. This is probably one of the key factors as to why the game went under, and why Rewritten may follow suit if they don't release more new content in the near future for the endgame players like myself.
While I still enjoy Toontown to this day, and will likely continue to do so until the sun turns to coal, I can't help but raise an eyebrow when one of this games glaring issues is looking me dead in the face.
Every problem I have with Toontown Online carries over to Rewritten as well ( the ones that weren't fixed in the list above, of course ). That said, I still think Rewritten is a much better game then Online across the board.
So, to rip off ExoParadigmGamer for a moment ( You rock, dude! ), if I had to give this game a "REMAKE or REBREAK" rating, I'd give it a "REMAKE". It's a sizeable improvement over the original game on the whole, re-implementing everything Toontown Online had to offer, and even finding new content to squeeze in on top of that, including some new stuff for us endgame players to do, which gets a major thumbs up from me.
However, and I cannot stress this enough: Rewritten hasn't done quite well enough to earn what ExoParadigmGamer would call a "REMASTER" score, because Rewritten still has a number of problems with it that carried over from Toontown Online. I know it's only a matter of time until these problems are fixed and patched out, and when that happens, I will GLADLY bump this game up to a Remaster. But as of now, it's going to sit at Remake.
If you love cartoony, colorful MMORPG's that don't demand TOO MUCH from you, or if your a completionist looking for a good MMO that'll keep you busy for a while, Toontown Rewritten is a game I would HIGHLY recommend. If your looking to get into the genre and aren't sure where to start, I would recommend either this game, or The Lord of the Rings Online, a game I call the best MMORPG of all time. These games are a great way to get started with the genre. And who knows, maybe you'll meet me, Dusty Bumblejinks, Bulldozer Studios mascot, in Rewritten! If you do, make sure to give me a high five, because this review took FOREVER to finish!
*** WHAT'S THE SCORE? ***
PLOT: Rewritten's story takes elements from Online and fleshes them out in detail we've never seen before! It isn't the best ever, but it's much better then what came before! ( 8.3 )
GRAPHICS: The games simplistic graphics have definitely aged since 2003, but the promise of improved graphics, and the already improved character animations, means this issue won't be sticking around for long. ( 7.6 )
SOUND: This games soundtrack is LEGENDARY, and has aged remarkably well, with only one or two exceptions. All the new music and sound effects truly helps to bring the game world to life! Did I mention how much I love the new Cashbot HQ tracks? ( 9.5 )
GAMEPLAY: The game is simple enough to ease newcomers to MMORPG's into the genre, while offering PLENTY of content to keep completionists busy for a good long while, despite a few problems that persist long after Online's closure. The game doesn't have PVP, but like with Toram Online, do we really need it? ( 7.9 )
APPEAL: The game has it's faults, as any game does, but it's still a joy to play even to this day! There's a reason people go to such extreme lengths to keep this game alive, and will likely continue to do so for years to come! #Toontown4Life! ( 8.4 )
FINAL SCORE: 41.7/50