Tonic Trouble

Nintendo console exclusive

Tonic Trouble is a 3D platforming video game by Ubisoft Montreal. The story follows the main character, Ed, after a magic potion spills on the Earth and causes vegetables to become living killers. The game was received poorly; critics cite poor controls, a wordy exposition, and sloppy graphics (on the N64 version). The N64 version of the game is a port of the PC version with noticeable differences, such as a substantially different opening due to the lack of processing power needed to render cutscenes, and different music in certain places. The game is often compared to another game published by Ubisoft called Rayman 2: The Great Escape, because both are 3D platformers, both have main characters of a similar design (hands and feet without arms or legs), and both were released around the same time.

Released: 31 August 1999
Platforms: Game Boy Color Nintendo 64 Windows
Genres: Adventure Platformer
Developers: RFX Interactive
Publishers: —
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Third person
Themes: Action Comedy
Country: Canada France
Age ratings: ESRB E CLASS_IND L PEGI 3
Languages: English, Italian

About

Tonic Trouble is a 1999 action-adventure game developed by Ubi Soft Montreal and published by Ubi Soft. The game follows janitor Ed, who drops a container of unidentified fluid from his spaceship to Earth, transforming the planet into a mutated version of itself. Drunkard Grögh drinks from the container and is granted powers that lead him to conquer Earth. Assuming the role of Ed, the player is tasked with solving puzzles and defeating enemies to acquire the tools to conquer Grögh and repossess the container to create an antidote.

Tonic Trouble was conceptualized by Michel Ancel and developed by a team of around 120 people, starting pre-production in June 1996. After multiple delays, the game was released for Nintendo 64 in August 1999, with a Windows version following that December. A Game Boy Color adaptation was made by RFX Interactive and released in Europe in 2000. Tonic Trouble received a mixed response from critics, who approved of the controls, score, level design, and graphics, but criticized the camera system, gameplay, visuals, and its derivative nature. The game sold 1.1 million copies by 2001 and was re-released with Nintendo Classics in 2025.

Keywords

aliens
mutants
superhero
anthropomorphism
character growth
melee
violent plants
moving platforms
super strength
superpowers
rotating platforms
retroachievements

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Tonic Trouble is an action-adventure game played from a third-person view. The playable character, Ed, navigates three-dimensional environments through platforming and entering portals, while wielding a peashooter (used in a first-person perspective); new gadgets are rewarded as more levels are completed. Gadgets are created by a mad doctor character, who builds the peashooter, a bow tie that enables Ed to fly, a diving helmet for underwater exploration, a belt that functions as a cloaking device by letting him take the appearance of enemies, and a pogo stick that allows him to traverse lava and stomp open trapdoors. There are six levels in the Game Boy Color version, in contrast to the twelve featured in the Nintendo 64 and Windows versions.

Ed can jump, climb, fly, swim, and crawl. To unlock the ability to kick and slap enemies, he must enlarge himself into Super Ed with popcorn consumables. The health bar increases from obtaining thermometers. Ed can use a stick to beat enemies, activate switches, and pry open doorways to areas containing bonus items.

Story

Tonic Trouble follows Ed, an alien janitor aboard the Mothership Albatros. In the Nintendo 64 version, he is cleaning a storage room and chases a bug to squash it. Exhausted, he drinks from an unknown tonic, spits it out, and accidentally drops the container. The liquid causes a trapdoor's screws to come alive, unscrew themselves, and allow the container to fall through toward Earth.

As it lands, one drop enters a river, polluting and mutating the entire planet. Grögh, a drunkard laying nearby, drinks from the tonic and gains supernatural powers, which he uses in an attempt to conquer Earth. Following the incident, the resistance leader Agent Xyz tasks Ed to head to Earth to recover the container.

Development

Tonic Trouble was conceived and initially designed by Michel Ancel, who had created Rayman in 1995. Ancel was largely inspired by the storyline of Day of the Tentacle and the world-travelling mechanic from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Starting pre-production in June 1996, Tonic Trouble was the first project to be developed by the previously established Ubi Soft Montreal, which devoted a team of sixty programmers, thirty animators, twelve level designers, twelve 3D artists, and four audio department employees. The game engine, known as "Architecture Commune Programmation", was built by fifty in-house staff over a course of eighteen months, with a total cost of US$4 million.

Using the engine, the developers wanted to take full advantage of Intel's newest Pentium II generation of central processing units. Tonic Trouble was one of the first games to be distributed on DVD-ROM, a rarity at the time. The additional storage of DVDs allowed Ubi Soft to include a longer introduction and more music tracks. Designer Pierre Olivier Clement stated that the design team aimed at making the player rationalize every step they took, contrary to what was done in games like Duke Nukem and Quake.

Reception

Tonic Trouble was met with mixed reception; the review aggregator website GameRankings calculated weighted average ratings of 53% for the Nintendo 64 version and 70% for the Windows release. 1 million copies as of 2001. Electronic Gaming Monthly thought that, in terms of level design, Tonic Trouble was "a tightly developed platformer"; the control scheme was similarly praised. Game Informer wrote that the "wide variety" of gameplay and "solid" controls would be enjoyable to platformer fans.

GamePro commended the musical score and sound effects, noting the puzzles as what kept the gameplay "diverse" and "challenging". Suzi Sez, reviewing the PC version for GameZone, enjoyed Tonic Trouble's "stunning" 3D graphics, "great" sound effects and music, "cute and fun" storyline, and unrelenting replay value. IGN's Matt Casamassina considered the visuals to be "good", the characters and levels to be "well designed", and the music to be one of the game's strong points. IGN's Game Boy Color review of Tonic Trouble, written by Tim Jones, described the controls as "tight and responsive" and the humour and visuals as "enjoyable".