Another one of Cartoon Network’s most popular shows, Adventure Time, is about a boy named Finn and his talking magical dog friend Jake as they go on crazy adventures in the land of Ooo.  In their newest game: Time Tangle, Finn mistakenly breaks the Time Totem and must dash through portals to repair time.  This third-person, continuously running action game is available for download on iOS devices, Google Play, and Amazon (review on iPad here).

In the game, Finn constantly runs forward and you must tilt the tablet to move him left and right to avoid obstacles.  Tap on the left side of the screen to make Finn jump over things, and tap the right side of the screen to make Finn punch enemies and breakable roadblocks.  And that’s all you do, simple as that.

When you start a level, you are given a quest.  These quests usually involve running to a specific area, chasing after characters, or rescuing a friend trapped by a mini-boss.  But they all have you doing basically the same thing: running and avoiding obstacles and punching enemies.  When you complete a quest, you’ll earn a crystal shard and start on another quest with the chance to earn even more shards.  When you have collected enough shards, you’ll be able to fight that area’s boss.  When that enemy is defeated, you can move onto the next area.  When Finn gets hit, he loses a heart.  Lose all three hearts and it’s Game Over.  But you still get to keep the crystals you’ve collected so that’s good.

As Finn runs and rescues characters, he may come across one of his pals from the cartoon who is willing to help him.  Tap the icon on the bottom of the screen to activate their powers, which let you do things like take an extra hit, fly over obstacles, or refill one of your hearts.  As you punch enemies and other things, coins will scatter.  Collect them to fill up a meter and when it’s full, you’ll be able to choose a power-up at the end of that quest.  Some of these power-ups are temporary, but some last the rest of the quest or until you get a Game Over.  As you play you’ll also unlock characters and items to view in a gallery, achievements, high scores, and other stuff.

The 3-D visuals are simple but reflect the style of the cartoon very well.  There are even neat little details like battle damage and torn clothes on Finn when he loses hearts.  The only problem with this game is that it’s yet another continuously running platformer in a sea of tablet games of the same genre.  However, Time Tangle is better than most, thanks to the good license.  So if you really like Adventure Time and its characters, you may want to check this game out anyway because they make good use of the theme in this title.

Kid Factor:

Even though you punch and hit enemies with weapons, they just fly back and disappear in a puff of smoke when defeated.  So violence is all cartoony.  If you’re OK with your kids watching the TV show, they’ll be OK with the game, too.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, but most of it is paired with speech by the actual voice actors from the show.  Younger gamers may get bored with the repetitive gameplay and frustrated by the harder, later levels, though.

Tags: Game Reviews, Television