Puzzle & Action: Tant-R (Genesis) review "The Game is Afoot"

PRISON BREAK!

Some of the meanest criminals have escaped custody, but it doesn't take long for two detectives to find them. Presumed to be dangerous, the confrontation goes just how you would expect it to: you wake up a sleeping rooster by popping a balloon with an air pump.

Puzzle & Action: Tant-R, originally developed for the arcades, brings its many quirks and oddities home with this Mega Drive port. Framed within the prison break theme, the overall goal is to complete a series of minigames using the two detectives, both exhibiting faint resemblances to Holmes and Watson. As one of the detectives, or a duo in co-op, you'll stop the fleeing criminals across various landscapes that include a city, the desert, and even through a Vegas-like attraction. Notably, this is all done in the Bonanza Bros. visual style, where all the characters are made up out of literal shapes, thus giving them a pseudo-3D polygon look that works alongside the game's silly premise.

Whenever you catch up to an escapee or their accomplices, a minigame triggers. Specifically, a menu with the option of choosing from four random minigames are shown, and you must try picking one with a cursor that auto-rotates nonstop between them. From there, you'll attempt to complete objectives that have absolutely no bearing on the game's "plot" or current circumstance.

One mini involves navigating a figure through a maze. That's it. Another tasks players with lining up four jewels of the same color in a sliding puzzle. That's that. However, add restrictions to these objectives, and the whole atmosphere suddenly changes. In Tant-R's case, each mini has to be done under a strict time limit, usually anywhere from 40 seconds to a mere five, meaning you'll have to quickly take action to deduce each puzzle. Putting very specific pieces together to create a robot is a completely different vibe when you know a short timer is counting down to your potential failure. Adding to each tense situation is the fact that, in most cases, you have to perform a feat multiple times to clear a minigame; the silver lining here being that the countdown normally resets with each new try.

That's not the end of what makes these the time-crunching challenges that they are. Lending to its arcade origins, you have a health counter made out of hearts, with each one taken away whenever you fail an objective. And depending on which one you're currently playing, the minigame will either come to a complete end or restart until you finally succeed. For instance, the tile minigame, which requires you to fill in all the tiles in a "maze" without going over previously-filled tiles, is a one-and-done challenge if time runs out. However, something like the animal memory challenge, which makes you repeat the animal sequences that were highlighted on the board, forces you to complete the mini regardless of how many times you've failed.



Suffice it to say, you should try your best not to lose lives, but more because of another reason: limited continues. On the default setting you have five continues, which you can raise to ten total, but even then completing the game can be a bit of an uphill battle due to its arcade quarter-crunching design. As you complete stage after stage, the difficulty for minigames increase in terms of speed and length. For example, one minigame involves attempting to take a photo of a speeding object as it passes the middle of the screen; in later stages, the speed at which they zoom by the screen borders on being a blur. There's another mini where you find a flower in one of four shuffled hats, and the shuffling speeds can get so fast, that you can fail simply by losing concentration for a second.

How does all of this fare for Tant-R as an entertaining romp? While the escalating difficulty may sound like a nuisance with the way lives and continues are handled, the game succeeds more than it doesn't at providing a fun experience, mainly for those wanting something to strain their cognitive skills under duress. From the "it doesn't" portion, perhaps the biggest flaw is the inconsistent lack of difficulty spikes for certain minigames. While most crank up the pressure, others such as the picture minigame feels oddly simple and safe; the goal with this one is to organize a jumbled picture, and this is rather easy to do because of how uncomplicated the images are. This never changes as progress is made through the stages, and worse, pictures often repeat themselves in the very same minigame!



Though, these are things that you'll notice more when playing solo. It's less noticeable when you're playing co-op where you're getting into the competitive spirit to see who does better, and you're not even fighting against each other. The console devs apparently understood this because, along with porting the arcade version to the Mega Drive, they also included a versus mode where you do battle with one another. While that doesn't sound too different, what makes this standout from the main mode is the fact that you can have up to four players with the help of a multi-tap; it's effectively a party mode. The port devs even included four new minigames tailored for the mode. Think you've got what it takes to outpace others in crushing an empty soda with the strength of a body builder?

The combination of the original arcade game and a competitive party mode certainly gives the home port longevity in terms of replay value. If this was just a release of the arcade version alone, it would have been enough to get by with the "survival mode" structure, not to mention always getting a random set of minigames per encounter. However, the extra mode is very much appreciated and it's something that you don't even see in the Sega Saturn port released just a few years later. If you're looking for something on the goofy, "lighthearted" side that still pushes your thinking and reactionary skills, Puzzle & Action: Tant-R is a fun choice to go with.

Community review by dementedhut (June 30, 2025) "Excellent! I cried. "Elementary," said he.