Tom and Jerry are friends. Hence why the "chase" never actually ends. I will pretend that Tom chose to stay with his usual "unhappy" life simply because he does enjoy Jerry's company and would miss his best, long-time friend in that boring void of clouds. Heck, Jerry helped Tom escape eternal torture in hell for no reason other than Tom being his friend. It'd make more sense and it would be a lot sweeter than any other explanation if you ask me.
I always thought of this as the reason. Tom just wants to make it look like he's trying to catch Jerry because he doesn't want to get replaced by a cat that actually wants to kill him.
in that last bit of the review/game, i thought that the player himself would have to choose Tom's ultimate fate, and there was some kind of hidden punishment for making the apparently obvious choice
I remember playing this Tom and Jerry game as a kid and it's satisfying to see Tom beating the living heck out of Spike with a wooden plank after all the years of mistreatment by the bulldog. The premise of the game feels like a continuation of _Heavenly Puss._
the autogenerated subtitles at the part where Tom gets sent back to the underworld after losing his lives are hella creepy too, even ending in a "thank you" after he is told that he gets a chance to save himself
Oh, this game. I remember playing this when I was little since I was a huge Tom and Jerry fan, and just like the episode it was loosely based on (Heavenly Puss) it left me mortified with how scary it was. The premise, Tom's _skull_ showing up when you die, and even the Game Over (even though it's not much) kept me up at night back then.
Speaking of Heavenly Puss, Jerry didn't kill Tom in that *short* (not an episode, because it implies continuity), so if Jerry didn't kill Tom in the short, it's likely he didn't kill Tom in this game either.
Yeah! I was thinking the same about the Tom Skull, I used to have nightmares with Tom and Jerry sometimes as a kid, lucky to me I never played this game, also, those Tom's souls looks very scary too Dx
I mean, for Tom's choice at the end there, it's not like he's not going to eventually die again and end up with her anyway. So, he really just wanted to live on Earth for a while longer.
Yeah I took that to mean Tom just wants to live out his life on Earth first. And now he has an eternally grateful and beautiful lady waiting for him up in Heaven, so it's not like he needs to rush.
I've owned this game myself, and I'm geniunely shocked it even got made in this time period. And yeah, beating it was satisfying just for the fact that Tom can come on top after all he's been through here.
i love how it's bros before hoes because technically they dont actually hate each other, they just have to be that way due to tom's fear of being replaced
It’s actually been established that Tom and Jerry can get along quite well together when their not beating the *ahem* hell out of each other. Maybe that’s why he chose Jerry over Angel lady. 8:04 Naturally I imagine it’s because this is essentially Tom’s devil and it should take more than a cat with a baseball bat to kill the devil.
I'll mention two romhacks of games with playable game overs. 1.SM64 Star Road: after Mario loses his last life, he's sent to a gray purgatory level where the only way out is to go down one hole. 2. Banjo Kazooie The Final Mission: not spoiling too much, but if the duo is done for the antagonist will laugh at you and your sent to a creepy graveyard, the only way out us to walk into the tombstone quite literally sending them to their graves.
I heard a fan theory about this. Tom and Jerry aren't enemies but best friend. Their antics in the cartoons is making it seem like Tom is hunting Jerry but it's just a charade. Because if Tom were to leave, the homeowner would get another cat and Jerry would probably die since it would be hunting for real.
The episode this game was based off of scared me as a child. I was raised in a christian family and was terrified of death and especially the concept of hell. So seeing Tom die and go to hell freaked me out and it turning out to be a dream didn't make things better. Since I was religious at the time I believed that hell existed and knew death was an eventuality, Tom's fate want changed, just delayed by a little while.
In some versions of The NewZealand Story (it is missing in many ports) there's a 'Heaven' area where you can end up going when you lose your last life. If you reach the end of this area, the game is over, you rest in eternal peace. But there's a secret path out, which lets you continue the game.
The reason for why he chose to go back to Jerry is fairly simple - the two are friends, not enemies. It's called Tom *and* Jerry for a reason, not Tom vs Jerry. If Tom's gone, the owners of the house which originally hired Tom to kill Jerry will hire pest control / another, meaner cat to finish Jerry off. Maybe Tom's just concerned about Jerry's fate back on Earth.
The Underworld where you lose all your lifes is definitely the highlight of this game. I remember the time I got plenty of game overs by ended up falls death into the deepest of hell without collecting a single soul.
Bad ending AND creepy time limit together, a match made in... yeah. Old Warner Bros. depictions of cartoon hell are quaintly amusing now, but there was a time when I found them as frightening. Then Yosimite Sam decided he'd enjoy himself more down there instead of trying to catch Bugs Bunny.
Well, it is a rare game where it is possible to play as Tom, but not the only one. There is the "Tom and Jerry: Frantic Antics" game based on an animated film (very poorly received by critics), where it is even possible to play as two: Tom and Jerry. Thanks for the episode.
I had this game as a kid, I never got past the first level. But even back then I thought the lives system was unique and genuinely scary. If the lives system would return today, game developers should take inspiration from this game.
1:56 Same. We don't need Tom to suffer another mess that has something similar to when Tom AND Jerry had to deal with women being shallow, and backstabbing in Jerry's case as well.
and the game doesn't explain how Jerry became a devil, but was still able to return to his normal self on his own?! could it be that he can become a devil whenever he fees like it?
The Haunting Starring Polterguy on the Genesis/Mega Drive is another game where losing sends you to an "underworld" dungeon and you have a chance to escape, but if you die in the underworld it's game over.
tbh I always got the impression that they're friends. Very odd friends, friends who constantly butt heads, but still friends. Also I feel like them being cartoon characters is a "known dynamic" between them, they can beat the tar out of each other and be none the worse for wear (most of the time), they just get really into whatever roles they've taken up for the given day (which is why Jerry was so happy to antagonist Tom as a little devil, until he realized that no, this one's for keeps, and there will be consequences today)
Don't get too ahead of yourselves, guys! It's not like Tom felt like it was all falling apart heading into the wrong direction, was it? No, really, was it? Boy...
I remember owning another Tom & Jerry game on GBA where you could play as either Tom _or_ Jerry, and both of them had their own continue screen - Jerry goes to heaven, Tom goes to hell and gets tormented by Devil Jerry. Not as bad as this game, but still crazy.
I think I still have this game luing around somewhere. It came out around the time I had a big dvd collection of Tom & Jerry. It was interesting at least. Meanwhile my friend owned War of the Whiskers. It was fun!
Jesus Christ, Tom actually gets dragged to Hell if he runs out of lives. I never thought I'd see that in a video game based off of a kid's cartoon. I mean, yeah, I know the show got dark at times, but God damn.
"There's also a devil version of Jerry running around who shows up now and then to make Tom's life worse." That's just regular Jerry. 6:47: Ha, I knew it! 9:11 Seriously?! I've been rooting for Tom ever since I first watched the cartoon as a wee lad, and it's this kind of thing that made me hate the status quo trope.
You're not wrong about zero lives, actually. I always used to think of having zero lives as being out of *extra* lives, as games often call them in power-up form. That said, it's fascinating to see this game, jank as it is. I may not be Christian these days but I am fascinated by pop culture ideas of Heaven vs Hell in media, especially cartoons. Helps I'm a fan of the All Dogs Go To Heaven series. I can't fault Tom for choosing his afterlife at the end. He is a slapstick cartoon character, ever defined by his rivalries with his old enemy (and occasional frienemy) Jerry. I also don't know how easily I could choose a happy afterlife over the life I have right now. As the ending said, "as it should be".
my headcanon is that the offer is initially appealing to Tom, but almost immediately visualizes Jerry disappearing in a puff of smoke, and can't follow through with it, offering a silent shake of the head, before walking out. A true frenemy, can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.
I could be misremembering but I swear you played another game in this series that was about a bird or something where you also were able to continue playing in a different world if you ran out of lives- this instantly reminded me of that.
I'm glad that someone bought this up at times like nowadays. Even though T&J are famous back then, the series almost never noticeable in videogames industry. So it's refreshing to see someone make a whole episode dedicated to T&J games
Ii know right? The only time Tom and Jerry were mostly known for in video games is in fighting games like War of the Whiskers and just recently Multiversus. I know the servers for Multiversus are down until next year but you get my point.
1:56: Ah, I know the one you’re talking about. I never really understood what was happening there originally, but now I question it in a different way wondering “But hasn’t Tom been chopped in half, beheaded and even cut into pieces in other episodes as well? What’s so extreme about it here?” Also there was the other Musketeer episode where Tom is seemingly washed down a drain into God knows where (maybe into a deep void like sewer or whatever), and Nibbles still has the very same reaction.
1:04 Okay, this may be me, but how is this Jerry's fault? From what we can see here, Tom tried pulling on the stair rug and ended up loosening the piano, which he should have noticed. If Tom actually bothered to be smart and notice things like that, then he would have fewer cases of defeating himself like that.
As a Tom and Jerry fan myself, I never even heard about this game let alone never even had a Gameboy. The only Tom and Jerry games I ever played were only fighting games such as War of the Whiskers. But when I first seen this game in a longplay years ago, I don't understood what was about (besides the Heavenly Puss reference which by the way I HATE THAT EPISODE). But after seeing game with more de-tails (pun intended), I never knew that this game goes in HARD!!! It's almost like watching that Splatter House episode all over again. Thanks for doing this video. Sonic and Jerry would also be shocked that a game like this even exsists!
I'm pretty sure it's been established or at least hinted that Tom and Jerry are "frenemies" Even if they get into fights and chases all the time, deep down they are friends and willing to work together when needed. And neither of them would ever go as far as to kill the other (I'm pretty sure that Jerry didn't intend for Tom to die in "Heavly puss" and this game) They're sorta like friendly rivals in a way. So that's why Jerry helped Tom escape Hell and Tom chose his life on Earth. As they say, bros before hoes
00:48 well T&J are never light to begin with. Even in Hanna Barbera version, they ended the series with depressing episode and event ended with tom and jerry commit suicide. There are even some epiode where tom got executed by guillotine. Heck there are even an episode (i forgot the name) where there are not om and jerry. Just jerry's sidekick (forgot the name) singing choir with other mouse inside wall hole that destroyed because there's war outside
Dang! I'm surprised that a game like this got made! It's a bit morbid for Tom and Jerry, even back then! The episode it's based on never shown a skull!
Can I just say, for how generic this game is as a platformer, I really like what they did with the game over system. If you lose your lives in the normal world, you have a last chance to continue your adventure as you scramble to search for souls in HELL itself, and under a stressful time limit too. If you lose all your lives in Hell, You've lost. Have a miserable time in Hell. I wish a few more games implemented this kind of thing nowadays (not a lot of games tho, cuz then it would lose it's novelty). I even have an idea for this. As this game does it, if you run outta lives in a normal level, you get sent to the "Hell" level and have gather certain number of souls/defeat demons/some other mcguffin under a time limit to continue your adventure. Almost everything will be as same as the way this game implements it, but if you were to get sent to "Hell" enough times (say, 6?), you will be sent to the "Hell" level again as usual and would have to get the same number of souls/demons/whatever as before, but this time there's a difference... there's one missing. No matter what you do, where you search, you just won't be able to find Tha last one you need to escape this level. Cuz it isn't there. It wasn't this time, the game intentionally removed it. Eventually, you run out of time, and get treated with the worst ending (Depending what the game's story is)
I'm glad you mentioned that musketeer episode Git! That's one of those cartoons that I swear I saw at least a dozen times as a kid, yet it wasn't until I was a bit older and saw it on Boomerang or something that I watched it with full attention and wow. I can't believe they actually show the shadowy silhouette of Tom getting beheaded by a guillotine! Meanwhile Jerry and uhh the little mouse walk away all smiling and triumphant like we're supposed to cheer for them and the execution we just witnessed. It makes me wonder if they didn't cut that scene out on Cartoon Network in the late 90s/early 2000s though I'm pretty sure only cartoons like Mad Maestro and anything racist were censored. Maybe I just didn't think much of it as a kid, I feel like these things are a lot worse when you think of them with an adult mind 😂.
