Tonic Trouble

About Tonic Trouble

Tonic Trouble is an action-adventure game played from a third-person view. The playable character, Ed, navigates three-dimensional environments through platforming and entering portals, while wielding a peashooter (used in a first-person perspective); new gadgets are rewarded as more levels are completed. Gadgets are created by a mad doctor character, who builds the peashooter, a bow tie that enables Ed to fly, a diving helmet for underwater exploration, a belt that functions as a cloaking device by letting him take the appearance of enemies, and a pogo stick that allows him to traverse lava and stomp open trapdoors. There are six levels in the Game Boy Color version, in contrast to the twelve featured in the Nintendo 64 and Windows versions.

Ed can jump, climb, fly, swim, and crawl. To unlock the ability to kick and slap enemies, he must enlarge himself into Super Ed with popcorn consumables. The health bar increases from obtaining thermometers. Ed can use a stick to beat enemies, activate switches, and pry open doorways to areas containing bonus items. Fetch quests include collecting red orbs and other items; solving puzzles can grant power-ups and help defeat enemies. Collecting bonus spheres will unlock a secret level.

Tonic Trouble follows Ed, an alien janitor aboard the Mothership Albatros. In the Nintendo 64 version, he is cleaning a storage room and chases a bug to squash it. Exhausted, he drinks from an unknown tonic, spits it out, and accidentally drops the container. The liquid causes a trapdoor's screws to come alive, unscrew themselves, and allow the container to fall through toward Earth. As it lands, one drop enters a river, polluting and mutating the entire planet. Grögh, a drunkard laying nearby, drinks from the tonic and gains supernatural powers, which he uses in an attempt to conquer Earth. Following the incident, the resistance leader Agent Xyz tasks Ed to head to Earth to recover the container.

In the PC version, Ed seeks to romance a woman but becomes pursued by her boyfriend Burk, who chases him into the storage room. When Ed learns of the tonic's mutagenic properties, he throws the container into a garbage chute and sends it toward Earth. As Grögh drinks from it, he spills a drop into a river, causing the contamination. Ed is tried and, being found responsible for a level-17 ecological disaster, is ordered to repair the damage. After an unsuccessful attempt to quickly retrieve the container from Grögh, he becomes stranded on Earth and is instructed by the General to recover it.

In both versions, Ed crash-lands on a snowy mountain and travels by sled to South Plain, where he meets Suzy. She asks him to rescue her father, the Doc, who has been imprisoned by his robot following the contamination. After freeing the Doc, Ed learns that he had been building a catapult capable of launching someone into Grögh's castle. After Ed recovers the missing pieces from Grögh's henchmen, the Doc finishes the device and dispatches Ed with it. In the castle, Ed confronts and defeats Grögh to recover the tonic container and restore Earth to its original state.