"Disney's Tarzan: Untamed" - Gamecube

AKA - "Disney's Tarzan: Freeride" in Europe

Oh boy, another random franchise Gamecube game for a cartoon. I'm kind of starting to wonder if I ought to have limited myself to Japanese releases or something now, because that would cut out a lot of this kind of stuff, and most of the sports games... but I'd feel bad eventually and want to do them, and then I'd have to go back and do nothing but cartoon and sports games to catch up. Ugh.

So let's play Tarzan.

Tarzan: Untamed was developed by the same team that developed Batman: Vengeance: Ubisoft Montreal. That was a lot of colons. And by the way, they never got over this penchant for naming games with keywords separated by a colon-- consider "Assassin's Creed: X" and "Rainbow Six: X," etc.

Anyway, apparently the game takes place some unspecified amount of time after the 1999 Disney Tarzan movie, but the Wiki isn't really clear, and I don't even remember hardly what it's about other than "jungle man live with gorilla." I guess some hunters try and capture him or something-- I can't really remember.

Hopefully that level of apathy doesn't affect my experience with this no doubt incredible game.

I literally can't see how this could be anything but an absolute festival of quality and fun.

----- Playthrough -----

Tarzan: Untamed comes in basically two entirely untamed flavors for you to experience. The first and main one is the story mode, so we'll talk about that in-depth first, because that's just about all there is to talk about.

My memory of Disney's "Tarzan" is highly limited as I mentioned in the opening, but what I did remember is basically the entire plot here-- Tarzan's got a girlfriend and there are some hunter guys that want to capture him and bring him to Europe to show him off, a plot point that amuses me since Tarzan is obviously just a hot white guy with dreadlocks and they treat him like he's some kind of gorilla person.

Watch as the strange monkey man enjoys his natural passtime of skateboard grinding in the forest.

Anyway, at some point I guess the hunters caught a bunch of baby gorillas and put them all over the forest in cages for reasons that are unclear (bait, maybe), and Tarzan's whole thing in Tarzan: Untamed is that he needs to save these gorillas and bring them back to their moms. While he's working on this endeavor, his British, white girlfriend also gets confused for a gorilla person and kidnapped, and so he has to save her.

You control Tarzan with your Official Gamecube Controller Peripheral (tm), and have a few things at your disposal. You can move with the analog stick, press B to punch or kick things, Y to throw spears (which can be picked up), or hold R and press different directions in certain contexts to do stylish tricks.

You can also press X to Tarzan Scream at people (not pictured).

Unfortunately Tarzan can't run worth a crap while holding the analog stick, because it seems to want to only speed him up to a run when you're pressing exactly on a cardinal direction, which means that the d-pad actually functions much better for this purpose. Also unfortunately, even attempting to make a turn with Tarzan will immediately slow him down to a crawl and the speed will have to be built back up.

But all of that barely matters, because the vast majority of the platforming levels, you'll only have to hold forwards. It sounds like an exaggeration, but 90% of the time that's pretty much all I was doing, just holding forwards and pressing A.

And what direction is this? That's right: forwards. You've been paying attention.

Breaking up these platforming levels will be some mini-game type levels, of really just three flavors. In one you'll do a bungee-jump, where avoiding all the obstacles and completing it will unlock secret pathways in all the other levels of that chapter (of which there are three). Another is the plank-surfing mini-game, where the game gets its cover art presumably, in which you'll surf on a plank down a river or something. Lastly is the bird jet-skiing level, where you'll be dragged behind a bird on a rope and move left and right with the d-pad and jump with A to... not get banged on stuff until the end of the level.

Occasionally during the game, you'll be thrown into a boss encounter which basically is just a quick time event in which you mash B and then input a sequence of buttons shown on the screen to watch a cutscene of Tarzan fighting something. These are actually pretty entertaining to watch, so it's hard to complain.

Mash B to stop this guy from doing that to Tarzan in this kid friendly game!

Sometime during the game you'll be prompted to go back and get most of the collectible film reels you missed before being allowed to move forwards, and none of these really present a huge extra challenge, it's mostly just a thing of finding and picking them all up-- but on special levels where you can't go backwards (plank surfing, skiing) you'll have to quit all the way back to the main menu to retry the level, which is... just awesome.

Once you beat the story and collect all the film reels, you'll be treated to a 1-2 minute cutscene that doesn't really add much (but did make me chuckle), and then you can move onto Terk's Challenges if you so dare.

Terk's Challenges require you to do one of two things: speedrun a level, or earn trick points by doing tricks throughout the level. Neither of these is hard to do and is mostly just an excuse to make you play the level two more times-- and if you complete both you'll unlock the "Super Challenge," wherein you... do both the speedrun and the point challenge together.

No, it's not just you; it doesn't make any sense.

I did exactly one of these and by this point I decided I had played far more Tarzan: Untamed than any one man should really be obligated to just to write a blog.

----- Review -----

How long did I play?
3 hours.

How much did I beat?
I beat the story and one challenge level.

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Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

The game mostly tutorializes and explains how to play as you go, so I wouldn't really worry. Even the third or fourth time you do something in the game, the game will usually give you a pop up explaining how to do it again just in-case you forgot. It's not ideal but it's not the worst game I've ever seen in this department either.

Gameplay: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel? Too difficult?

There were a couple moments in the game that were very difficult for all the wrong reasons-- namely that Tarzan is a pain in the ass to control and any jumps which require anything but purely holding forwards are an absolute nightmare to get to work correctly. Trying to predict how Tarzan will move relative to the screen is often a total crap-shoot and your best bet is assuming you need to hold forwards at all times until you're sure you don't.

Other than that, the game is a total breeze and I wouldn't expect to be challenged while you play it, even by the challenge modes.

Unless having your patience challenged by the ski levels is a valid challenge.

Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

Apparently about 3 hours.

The presence of the challenge modes is a cute attempt to extend the game length but I sort of doubt it even unlocks anything and I really didn't have the desire to play all of these levels 4 times (especially when I already played them multiple times to get the film reels...).

Presentation: 

How's the sound? How are the graphics?

Tarzan: Untamed's cutscenes and overall presentation is fine for a Gamecube game, it honestly even ranges into the pretty good at times. The cutscenes look ooooOOOOooookay, and the actual in-game graphics are fine as well. There were a few times I found myself thinking "this actually looks pretty good for a Gamecube game," but I guess overall it didn't really blow me away most of the time.

... it looks a little better in motion, maybe.

As for the music, I honestly think you can just use your imagination. What kind of music do you imagine when you think of a Tarzan game? Is it drum heavy jungle-esque music with some flutey parts and maybe some chanting? Because that's exactly what the soundtrack is, when it's not just being generic action movie type stuff (this actually happens more frequently).

Personal Chord: 

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

No, not really. I mean, I like Disney movies but I don't even remember this one very well.

Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

I mean, no. Are you a big fan of Disney's "Tarzan?" Because if you are, then sure. Otherwise, no. It's a very mediocre 3D platformer with a few hours of gameplay.

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