4/5 ★ – jdraco's review of Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures.
I just want to start this review off with a warning to everyone thinking about playing this game
And It’s a warning to prepare yourself and to prepare your eyes for what your about to look at, because the character model for Eddy in this game looks a chicken that survived Chernobyl
I’m serious too, and that goes for most of the character models in this game, because most of them are absolute abominations that need to be destroyed immediately
And I understand why they would look shitty, because the game developers are taking 2D cartoon characters and putting them in a 3D world, but still, I just can’t get over how ugly they look
I will say though, I love how all of the characters' movements are very animated. It still feels very much like the show with not just how the characters move, but also how they act as well
Because every level, every cutscene, and every interaction in this game feels like they were pulled straight from the show and I love that. They even got all the original voice actors to reprise their roles for this game, just to give it that extra authentic feel, like you’re playing through an episode of the show
And honestly that’s what every level in this game feels like, they just feel like another episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy. Each level even has little title cards before them and the name for each level is usually some Ed-based pun
For example there’s a haunted house level that I really like called Nightmare on Ed Street, and then of course this game has the very controversial hospital level called Abort-Ed
Obviously that last one was a joke, but I just realized how easy it is to make Ed-based puns and it’s really kind of fun
But regardless, this game is insanely faithful to the show and even just to wander around the little hub world in the game (which is the Cul-De-Sac) is really fun to me because I genuinely love the setting of the show and just want to explore it and look at all the little details and nuances within the hub world
I will say though that parts of the neighborhood that the boys live in are borderline apocalyptic looking
Like I’m not sure if they live in Detroit or if there was some kind of nuclear fallout, but some parts of their neighborhood look fucked up
I mean there’s squirrels and all sorts of creature running around everywhere, the parks are all flimsy and demolished, there’s a sewage pipe that the kids hang out by, and then of course there’s the old haunted house up on top of the hill
I don’t know though
Maybe it is just a normal neighborhood and I’m just a privileged fuck
Regardless though, another thing that I love about this game and how faithful it is, is that the levels aren’t called “Levels” in this game, they’re called “Scams”
So level 1 in this game isn’t called “Level 1” It’s called “Scam 1”
And then level 2 is called “Scam 2”, level 3 is “Scam 3” and you get the gist
This is very faithful though, because in the show the Ed boys are always trying to do some scam/scheme every episode
So just that little detail of changing “levels” to “scams” is very satisfying
And It’s so satisfying that from now on for the rest of this review, I won’t be referring to them as “levels”, I’ll be referring to them as “scams”
And the scams in this game are pretty damn good in my opinion
And again they legitimately all feel just like episodes from the show
You of course have a scam where the boys are trying to steal ice cubes for a snow cone business that they want to run, or the next scam where the boys can’t get into Rolf’s birthday party directly, so they sneak into it from the sewers
It’s all incredible, and I also love the hidden scams too, that you can unlock by collecting a piece of clothing that’s hidden in a sandbox in every scam
There a 2 of these hidden scams and they’re both themed around imaginary scenarios that the boys created
So for example in one of these unlockable scams, Ed is dressed in this shitty dinosaur costume and he’s called “Ed-Zilla”
And your objective in this scam is to destroy all of the buildings in the city. And then at the end you fight this hideous kaiju monster called “Kankerator”
Which is just all of the Kanker sisters combined into this three-headed, disgusting looking monster
It’s fantastic and I love it
Another thing that’s fantastic about this game too is the “Easter Eggs” that you can get for catching a chicken in every scam
You get six of them and three of them are these little cosmetic changes which alter the look of the three boys. Such as little head mode, which makes their heads little, big head mode, which makes their heads big, and then the space suits, which let you wear the boys make shift space suits. And I definitely like this the most because it’s the least terrifying out of three
The last three easter eggs however are three little cinematics that you get to view in various movie booths around the Cul-De-Sac
The first one is a very wholesome video showing the voice actors for all of the Ed boys, the third one is just a trailer for the game, and then there’s second one which is my favorite, which is a live action music video called “My Best Friend Plank” and it’s absolutely incredible
It’s just this legitimate song sung relatively well by some guy about Plank from the show, and then the music video itself just shows Plank in various real world places just doing random shit
It’s incredible
Words just can’t do it justice
They can’t describe how beautiful it is
You really just have to watch it for yourself and see the masterpiece that is “My Best Friend Plank”
One last thing that I want to touch on though before I start to break down my flaws with the game, is the reward that you get for completing the game 100% and collecting everything
Which is a list of three cheats that you can turn on and off and use whenever you want. The cheats being unlimited stealth, unlimited damage, and fast run
Now these are all pretty standard cheats, nothing too special, but I have to say that fast run is definitely my favorite
Because it is absolutely hilarious to see the boys running at superhuman speed and then seeing their bodies just kind of flail around and move in unnatural ways
It’s very funny
However though, now I want to start to break down some of my problems with this video game, because it does indeed have problems
And for starters I want to start with the most blatant and glaring problem of all… This game is raw as hell
And I mean that in the sense that there are so many things that are unpolished in this game and it has so many rough edges. For starters combat is absolutely horrendous and the hitboxes don’t make any sense
And this makes the enemies in this game incredibly annoying to deal with sometimes because it can be very hard to hit them, while at the same time they can just run at you and get a few hits in for free
The worst example of this though is the enemies that latch themselves onto you with the only way of getting them off being that you have to jump around multiple times
This pretty much halts your progression to a stop and makes you have to deal with whatever enemy is doing this to you, and it can be very aggravating
Some enemies also have like 3-5 second invincibility window after you hit them, and you just have to kind of stand there and wait it out until your allowed to hit them again
It’s very annoying and the combat in general is just annoying and is not very fun at all
I’d say that the most fun thing to do combat wise is use the battering ram move with Ed, where you basically just get to run around and use Ed’s entire body as a weapon
That move is pretty fun
But shifting back to some unpolished bullshit that’s in this game, again, the hitboxes don’t make any sense at all
There are multiple times throughout this game when you have to walk across a narrow platform while trying not to fall off and also trying not to avoid some type of swinging obstacle in your path
However the swinging obstacle in your path usually has a hitbox that fucks you up if you get within like 3 feet of it
Like I swear the fucking hitboxes of these things span across 2 football fields
And there were numerous times where I would try so fucking hard to be careful not to get to close to one of these obstacles while it was swinging, and then just when I thought that I was far enough away, it would hit me and I would lose
Luckily though there are no lives in this game and the checkpoints that it gives you are very fair
But still the hitboxes fucking suck
One other too that I found pretty annoying in this game is that Ed (who’s the big dumb one if you’re not familiar with the show) constantly has this voice clip of him laughing that goes off repeatedly throughout the whole entire game
And this can be very annoying, especially if the game starts to piss you off
Because then not only are you pissed off, but the game is literally laughing at you on top of that
I will say though after a while you do start to kind of drown out the laughing, so It’s not that huge of a flaw, It’s just a kind of an annoyance
The last thing that I want to touch on though, and I actually can’t believe that I didn’t touch on it yet, is the gameplay and what you actually do in this game
So Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures is basically a traditional 3D platform game. However what separates this game from most other 3D platformers, is that you have to swap between the 3 different Ed’s and use their different abilities to get through each scam
And I love this concept, it makes each of the Ed’s feel actually pretty different playstyle wise and I’m not ashamed to say that I actually had to rack my brain a few times to try and figure out which Ed that I had to use to get past certain situations
This game isn’t afraid to make you stop and analyze situations and I like that a lot
For instance on the last level there’s this small lake you need to get across, but to get across it you to need use all of the Ed’s and their unique abilities
So you need to use Double D’s slingshot to knock down platforms for you to walk across, and then his trampoline ability to get to higher ground so he can knock down more platforms
And then you need to use Ed’s battering ram ability to knock down cars that create more platforms for you to walk across
And then finally you need to use Eddy’s balance ability to traverse across all the narrow walkways that Double D helped create in order to finally get to the end of the lake
I have to admit, for all of this games jank, all of it’s unpolishedness, that one simple segment of just crossing that small lake is perfectly executed and it is fantastic game design in my opinion
But with everything being said, all the positives and the negatives, what do I think about this game as a whole?
I really like it
And to tell you the truth, I don’t really know why
I mean I liked this game and had full intentions of giving it a 3.5/5 before I wrote this review
But I legitimately convinced myself while writing this to bump the score up to a 4/5
And that’s with me keeping in mind the shitty combat, horrible enemy encounters, hitboxes that don’t make any sense, physics that don’t make any sense sometimes, horrific character models
All of that is fresh and in my mind when I think about this game, and yet I still really like it
And I know that I just said that I don’t really know why, but think I do know why now, and it’s because this game and its world just feel very comforting to me for some reason, so nostalgic
It’s almost like when I play this game I’m just a kid again, watching Cartoon Network after school instead of doing my homework
And I really didn't realize just how much I cherished those times, until I played through this game
So thank you Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures
Thank you for bringing me back to better days