"Rugrats: Adventures in Dreamland" is a wonderfully charming throwback

Rugrats: Adventures in Dreamland was a fun distraction fully completable over a weekend or in a single night for the adventurous.

Rugrats: Adventures in Dreamland follows the gang as they attempt to collect Reptar coins so that they can unlock the Reptar door. It is the end level of the game. You get to control four of the babies - Tommy, Chuckie, Phil and Lil - each having their own individual control style. You'll play through six levels, each with its own unique theme, though the game takes place entirely within the Rugrats house.

The game features two-player co-op (which I did not test), and allows you to swap the music and the art between the HD and the 8-Bit version at will.

Though the game takes place entirely in the home, the babies' imagination really brings the level design to life. With many familiar friends and enemies from the show - if you've seen it, that is.

The game allows you to control any baby at will, and you can freely change your character during the stage. Different characters have their health bars and their own jump and float mechanics. You can easily swap out characters to protect them from dying because if you do, you lose them. Their milk bottles represent their health bars, with extra lives represented by cookies.

The game's hand-drawn style emulates the TV show almost perfectly in HD mode, and in my opinion, it's one of the more unique aspects. The pixel art version works on an NES console, for which I commend the developers.

Though the game's platforming often felt highly unfair, and the enemy spawns took me out way too much, the game's charm and genuinely fun boss battles made up for much of it. The boss battle music, reused for almost all other boss battles, was top-notch and easily the best part of the game.

The platforming was decent, but there were many times when you would encounter instances where the enemy spawns were either unfair or required too precise of platforming, and it felt frustrating to complete.

There were multiple times during the playthrough of the HD mode when I did not realize there were platforms that I could have used. Swapping to the NES mode, I could see other pathways. And true to old-school NES games, the enemies respawn if you move a screen away, which takes getting used to, especially if you have forgotten that it was a thing.

The game's level design was primarily intuitive. It very much became a hold-left kind of situation. However, there were points in the game where that mentally would throw you into the abyss. The game's level design did seem a bit wonky here and there, but again, I chalk that up to the fact that the game mostly emulates an NES old-school level variety, which was often completely wild and made little to no sense.

The music was mostly good, although if you don't like one track or the other, be prepared to hear it for the entirety of the game. It was constrained because this game targeted both an NES build and a modern PC build. However, as the game progressed, I found the soundtrack taking a backstage, although I still enjoyed boss battle music.

Overall, I did enjoy this game. I think it's worth a shot. If you're a collector, this is one for the collection. If you have an actual working NES, then sure, get the physical cart and pop it in. Though I thought the level design and platforming could use some work, I think it was a fun enough time that it would keep you playing, and its relatively short length means that you can easily knock it out in a single night or throughout a weekend.