The 1990s are back, baby! Limited Run Games has offered us a new collection with some of the Nickelodeon classics from the SNES and Sega Genesis days, in the form of the Nickelodeon Splat Pack. Included in this collection are the games AAAHH!!! Real Monsters, GUTS, and Rocko’s Modern Life: Spunky’s Dangerous Day. Time to break out the Fruit Gushers and Tostino’s Pizza Rolls, twist open a Squeezit, and get your Gak ready. It’s time to see if these relics from the neon-colored past have withstood the test of time.

Started from the bottom now the whole gang’s here.

Not having played any of these games since their original releases in the mid-90s made me eager to see if they still held up well. My feelings about the Nickelodeon Splat Pack are pretty mixed. While I appreciate that Limited Run Games brought these retro games back into the modern day, what we have in this collection are fairly straightforward ROMs of the originals, with maybe a few quality-of-life improvements, such as a rewind ability (which I’ll admit was greatly appreciated), the ability to pause and save whenever you want (although there’s only one save state), and a Music Player if you just feel like vibing to those hilariously distinct 90s tunes.

Ickis, Oblina, and Krumm are just as weirdly adorable as I remembered, but their game is downright infuriating at times.

Starting with AAAHH!!! Real Monsters, out of the three games in the Nickelodeon Splat Pack, this is probably the one I played the most when it was first released. You play as Ickis, Krumm, and Oblina, each with their own strengths and special skills. You’ll have to switch between them to navigate through sewers, schools, and city streets, scaring humans and upgrading your skills along the way. Oh boy, did I forget how brutally punishing this game is!

Limited Run Games redid the button mapping for the Nintendo Switch controls, as it was originally released on the Super Nintendo and Mega Drive, so naturally, they had to adapt the controls for modern systems. Honestly, I hated the button mapping for this game. It feels so weird and awkward, and I’m not even saying that as a nostalgia snob. There’s no way to remap the buttons either, so it makes trying to play an already frustrating game even more aggravating. 

Do you have the GUTS to keep playing this game? No? Me neither.

Next up is GUTS.  In GUTS, you play as one of the teen players in athletic competitions against each other. Think of it as a sort of juvenile precursor to today’s Ninja Warrior shows. If you do well enough at certain challenges (either solo or in two-player) or you beat another challenger, then you’ll be able to tackle the massive magmatic mountain: the Aggro Crag! Making it past the numerous obstacles and scaling the top results in a full victory in the GUTS competition.

This is the game I played the least back in the day, with good reason. This game had, and still has, some of the worst controls from games of that era. The rewind ability is basically a necessity to advance throughout the game within any decent timeframe. Characters will more often than not fail to grab ledges, cling to ropes, throw a ball in the direction you’re aiming, and sometimes even launch themselves off ledges for seemingly no reason. Making it through each challenge was agonizing, and would certainly have benefited from some QoL improvements.

POW! Right in the kisser!

Last up, we have Rocko’s Modern Life: Spunky’s Dangerous Day. You play as our favorite wallaby, Rocko, as he helps his dog, Spunky, navigate past various obstacles and enemies. Since Spunky has more curiosity than he does brain cells, this task is easier said than done. Rocko will need to be ever vigilant in his quest to dispatch foes and threats, all while guiding his clueless canine companion towards the golden hydrants of safety.

Out of all the games included in the Nickelodeon Splat Pack, this is the one that has held up the best. It’s not perfect, mind you, far from it, but I think its game design makes it fair better than the other two. Instead of being a tricky platformer or a game with time constantly running out, Rocko’s Modern Life: Spunky’s Dangerous Day takes a slightly different approach. While still a platformer of sorts, it focuses more on puzzle-solving by getting through the safest route, rather than punishing leaps and climbing. These controls are much less annoying because of this, and this is the game I can see people enjoying the most. I certainly did.

As far as overall improvements, the graphics have a resolution upgrade, and the audio has been cleaned up as well. That’s about it, though. I’ve already mentioned the ability to pause, save, and rewind (genuinely the best addition to this collection), but it feels like nothing more than superficial enhancements for games that were never great to begin with. It’s hard to recommend the Nickelodeon Splat Pack unless you have intense nostalgia for these games. It makes me feel the same way I felt about the Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King collection. We were young and didn’t have many better options for games centered around licensed IPs back then, so we were more patient and willing to look past the glaring flaws within these games. Now that we have countless better options at our fingertips, I think it’s better to leave some relics from our past in the past.

Nickelodeon Splat Pack is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2.

A copy of Nickelodeon Splat Pack was provided by the publisher.