Follow TV Tropes

Following

Video Game / Taz in Escape from Mars

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/21632_front.jpg
Taz In Escape From Mars is a 1994 Sega Genesis game featuring Looney Tunes star Taz the Tasmanian Devil. It is the sequel to the first Taz-Mania game on the Genesis, in terms that it shares a similar design and concept. However, Escape From Mars is more based on the classic Looney Tunes shorts, rather than the Taz-Mania cartoon.

The plot centers around Taz being kidnapped by Marvin the Martian as a zoo exhibit and trying to find his way back home to Tasmania.

Tropes used in this game:

  • Advancing Wall of Doom: The One-Hit Kill drilling machine in Act 2 of Mole World that takes up half the screen.
  • Aliens Are Bastards: Given that the entire game is set in outer space, most of the enemies you'll encounter are aliens who seem to follow Marvin's typical thinking of Earthlings as animals below him who can be taken and displayed in a zoo for the higher life-forms entertainment.
  • Big Boo's Haunt: The Haunted Castle, which serves as the fifth world. Like Mexico, it deviates from the game's Space Zone theme.
  • Big Eater: Taz. He even eats the exit signs at the end of an Act.
  • Breath Weapon: If Taz eats a can of gasoline, he can breathe fire.
  • Bullfight Boss: The boss of the Mexico level is none other than Toro the Bull (from the Bully for Bugs cartoon).
  • Continue Countdown: If Taz loses all of his lives but has at least one continue left in his inventory, he is sent to the Continue screen, where he has twenty seconds to decide whether or not he wants to continue the game. If he selects "Continue" before time runs out, then he gets to continue the game. If he selects "Exit" or time runs out, then he is sent to the Game Over screen.
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: Mole World Act 2, which features spikes, hostile moles, drills, conveyor belts, and one hell of an Advancing Wall of Spiky Whirling Death.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: The bosses of the Haunted House are The Mad Scientist and Gossamer. Taz has to get Gossamer to sit in one of the two chairs so he can switch brains (or lack thereof) with him and use Gossamer's body to destroy the Mad Scientist's laser. After doing so, Taz has to switch back to his normal body in order to advance to Marvin's House.
  • Free-Fall Fight: The Mole World boss fight takes place in a bottomless mining shaft.
  • Jungle Japes: Planet X, complete with giant mushrooms, some of which Taz can pick up and use like a propeller when he spins.
  • Poison Mushroom: Eating a bomb (or anything that looks like a bomb, such as a cake with a dynamite stick in place of candles) has this effect.
  • Power-Up Food: Fruit, ham, burgers, loaves of bread, roast turkey, and cakes with regular candles all restore lost health.
  • Segmented Serpent: The boss of Planet X is a snake-like monster, whose weak point is his tail. With each hit, a piece of his body bursts off.
  • Shout-Out: Plenty of characters you'll recognize from Looney Tunes, including the Haunted Castle boss.
    • Toward the end of the game, when the rocket that Taz is on is about to crash-land into Tasmania, he presses the red "brake" button and stops the rocket in mid-air, in a scene reminiscent of Falling Hare and Hare Lift.
  • Shrink Ray: The first level has these. For the rest of the game, they're in edible potion form - some make you grow, too.
  • Space Zone: Taz travels to different planets throughout the game, but the world that suits this trope the most is Mars, the first world in the game, as it takes place in Marvin the Martian's zoo.
  • Tactical Suicide Boss:
    • The boss of Mars is a giant subterranean alien elephant/slug hybrid whose eyes are its weak point. It would be impossible to defeat if it didn't open its eyes.
    • The boss of Mole World is a hovering mining machine. While the boss is difficult, it would be outright impossible if the pilot didn't open the hatch so Taz could hit it.
  • Underground Level: Mole World, which serves as the second world.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Marvin's House, which serves as the sixth and final world.
  • Wall Jump: If the walls are close enough together, Taz can bounce off them when he spins.
  • The Walls Are Closing In: You have to use Taz's ricochet move to escape the garbage compactor in Marvin's House when this happens.
  • The Wild West: Mexico, which serves as the fourth world, and the first one that deviates from the game's Space Zone theme.

Top