He’s not nothing but his withs and his, um… chicken suit?
- NA release: 15th October 2003
- EU release: 12th March 2004
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: Avalanche Software
- Publisher: THQ
- NGC Magazine Score: 69%
- Mods Used: Widescreen Code
Tak and the Power of Juju was Nickelodeon’s big foray into video games, trying to do more than churning out cheap budget titles. While Tak did get a cartoon years later, it was originally planned as just a game series. Nickelodeon even used subliminal advertising by giving Tak cameos in Rocket Paper and Rugrats video games. They clearly wanted it to be big. It must have had some success, as there were four main games plus multiple handheld versions.
The main cutscenes in this game are extremely well made. At this point, Jimmy Neutron was Nickelodeon’s only CGI show (the Tak show itself was the second) and this animation is massively better than that show, I’d even go so far as to say that it would even be impressive for animated films at the time. On top of that, the characters are charming and there are some amusing moments. It’s a shame the final cutscene is made with in-game models.
Speaking of the game, it’s a 3D platformer with awkward controls. I really don’t like how your long/high jump is linked to the second weapon you get in the game (a staff) as it means you have to constantly swap weapons to perform different jumps, something made even worse by the swap weapon function just not working a lot. When you get more weapons, it means more toggling through them to get the right jump. Other controls (such as a dart gun or magic) are also tied to weapons, activated by pressing buttons not used by anything else. There were enough buttons to activate all of Tak’s powers without needing to swap weapons, but instead there’s this frustration instead.
The game is a collection in multiple steps. First you collect 12 plants (each using the same boss fight), then 100 magic stones (alongside other objects) and then more magical gubbins. These items don’t appear until you reach that point in the story, so you’ll have to make the many jumps that led to nothing the first time you explored the bland levels. There is a unique element in that you manipulate animals to activate different objects, but that doesn’t amount to more than hitting them in different ways.
Fine
Accomplishing tasks always feels workman-like and you never really relish in the challenge of going about them – instead you always have the nagging feeling that they’re just there to get in your way and spin things out a bit more. An inconvenience to your progress. And this, sadly, is an underlying problem that no amount of beautiful pastel-shaded sky, quirky voice-overs of FMV can rectify.
Geraint Evans, NGC Magazine #92
Remake or remaster?
A collection would be neat.
Official Ways to get the game
There’s no official way to get Tak and the Power of Juju
Europe
Japan
North America
