Retrogaming – Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (NES)

Who did frame Roger Rabbit anyway?  I remember playing this as a kid – though I’m not sure if I wanted to play the game itself, or if the cartoon pinup on the box has something to do with it.  It’s too bad the graphics in the game don’t like that like – I’d never leave that monkey club.

Anyway – interesting game for the most part.  SHORT if you know what you’re doing.  Just stupidly complicated where it doesn’t need to be.  The game is totally random, so there is basically no way to write a walkthrough.  The items you need are spread out over the three maps, and you just have to pee in every garbage can, and desk drawer that you can find.  I mean, you’re not actually peeing in them, but it sure as heck looks like it when you turn your back to the camera.

See what I mean?

Helpful Stuff –

Read the manual

I have maps for the first two areas, and stitched screenshots together for the ToonTown map.  The ToonTown map doesn’t look pretty, but should include everything relevant.  It took me hours to stitch together so make sure you use it and don’t get totally frustrated like I did trying to find my way around.

World –

Ok – the game starts in your office (you’ve watched the movie and know the characters right?).  You can leave and find some money (wallet).  Go back in and search your stuff for another wallet you missed the first time – then head back outside for yet another wallet.  Why would you ever need to take a job if you can just walk in and out of your place and people leave money on the street?

Now, your mission, is to go in every building and locate the few special objects and mostly useless objects that you need to get the special objects.  Not every building has stuff in it.  The people are actually weirdly helpful considering the only thing your character can say through the whole game is “can you help me”.  Some PI you are.  Surprisingly they’ll actually tell you the building is empty, or to take a look and search.  Sometimes they’ll say they can’t help – which usually means it’s empty, but then you have to search the whole thing just in case.

Don’t forget to check if the building side scrolls, both outside and inside.  I totally had no idea that there might be more than one screen on the outside and inside and missed a whole bunch of stuff.  Just start walking to the side, if the screen moves, keep going until it stops.

Anything that isn’t a person will hurt you, don’t run in to it.  Cats will jump at you, dogs run across the screen, rats slowly walk across the screen etc.  Birds drop bombs on you eventually – it sucks.  They CAN hit you while you’re talking and/or searching, so make sure you’re out of the way.  If you need to cancel just hit the talk button again and move.  NOTE – you don’t need to be anywhere close to people to talk to them, just point in their general direction.

TIP – People who can’t help you, might help you if you leave and enter the room.  Similarly, creatures inside rooms will change if you go out and back in.  So if there is a scary one you don’t like, try that.  This works well later on when you’re searching inside and have a bomb dropping bird, just go in and out till you don’t have a bird anymore.

There are several key items you’ll need to advance from the first area.  TNT explosives and the detonator.  These open the tunnel to ToonTown.

You’ll need the password to get in to the monkey club – and eventually you’ll need to locate all four pieces of the will.  The easiest way to find the will pieces is to find some roses by searching buildings, then go to the monkey club and drop a rose to talk to Roger’s girlfriend.  She tells you where to look for the pieces.  Not exactly where, but the general location which is super helpful.

TIP – Locked buildings need crowbars, stand by the bottom of the screen and face the door, then use the crowbar, don’t try to use the crowbar looking sideways.

You will need to find the car, or whistles, so that you can use the car to get through the tunnels and access the other areas.  Only the car can get through the tunnels (press select to enter the car – why select?? I died so many times trying to figure that out)

Enemies –

Your main enemies, are cars.  They will kill you if they run you over, and they will run you over a lot.

Second to cars, are snakes.  They are fast and will run you over and kill you.

Third are vultures, they will swoop down and lift Roger up and kill him, losing a life.

Last are the weasels.  On the overhead map screen, you may get chased by them – either on foot, or in a car.  On foot you can’t outrun them forever in a straight line, but they corner really badly, and often you can loop around and walk right past them before they can turn to catch you.  Entering any building or cave etc. will make them disappear.  They are vulnerable to being run over by cars (just like you) on foot, sometimes you can take advantage of that.

If they catch you, they will hold Roger hostage unless you can answer their riddle.  The more times you get caught, the more riddle answers you have until it’s basically impossible to find the right answer in time before they bop Roger on the head and you lose a life.

They sound scarier than they are, mostly you can just avoid them – I get caught more often trying to drive and generally don’t bother with the car at all except needing it to get through tunnels.

There is a second weasel that will appear randomly when you enter buildings.  You will have to fight him off, which basically means powering up, waiting for him to get close and punching him till he goes away.  It’s not hard, you can basically stand in one spot while he wanders around, then bop him when he gets close.

The Boss –

Eventually after collecting all the pieces of the Will, you can enter the final warehouse area to save Roger and his girlfriend from the weird scary toon.  To get inside you’ll need to have found the baseball somewhere previously.  Bring weapons if you want, but at the end of the day they won’t finish the game for you.

TIP – There is a magic house in Toon Town on the far Northeast corner of the map, off by itself on the beach.  When you enter it will say “Magic house” on the top menu bar.  Using items in here makes them fall from the ceiling, so you can fill up to the max of everything you have at least 1 of.

The Boss battle consists of bouncing around charging your fist up, then bouncing over and socking the guy in the face, then running away.  There are two “(” things on the top screen, you have to move the one on the left all the way to the END wording (right on top of the N or so).  This takes 20 punches or so.  It seems like forever.  Then you knock him over, do the thing I’m not going to spoiler for you so you figure it out yourself, and you’re done!

You can see the brackety things in my above picture.  The right hand one is your health, if it gets to the end thingy you die first.  And then you rescure the Toons and Toontown is saved and belongs to the toons forever.