Tonic Trouble



An obscure Platform Game by Ubisoft. It has a visual style similar to Rayman (Most noticably, all characters have Raymanian Limbs) and in fact plays more like a 3D version of the original Rayman than Rayman 2 ever did. Ubisoft had the unfortunate timing to release it after Rayman 2, of which standard it falls short. Still a fun game, though.

The story involves an alien named Ed accidentally dropping a can of tonic on Earth, where it is found by a viking named Grogh. He takes a sip of the tonic and transforms into a tyrant who proceeds to Take Over the World (or in his words: "This time, drinks are on me! And Everyone's gonna get a taste! Hahahaaa!"). A tiny droplet falls into a river and the whole world goes mad: the rivers turn into sangria, mountains rise up and vegetables turn into dangerous monsters. Now it's up to Ed to defeat Grogh and retrieve the tonic.

Tonic Trouble provides examples of:

 * A Winner Is You
 * All There in the Manual: Just playing the game, you would never know that the Pharmacist is working for Grogh.
 * Almighty Janitor: A literal one!
 * Anticlimax Boss: The Magic Mushroom.
 * Attack Its Weak Point: Some Helling Guards wear a steel armour, but their back is wide open for an attack. Also the Final Boss.
 * Though its never explained, The  can be killed without powerups,
 * Attack of the Killer Whatever: Killer vegetables! They even have their own headquarters.
 * Beard of Evil: Grogh has one.
 * Bee-Bee Gun
 * Big Bad: Grogh
 * Breather Level: The Killer Vegetables HQ is quite comfortable after all the stuff in Doc's Cave.
 * YMMV, atleast in the special edition where both are darker and edgier.
 * Broken Aesop: Is the game commending or condoning alcohol?
 * SEE KIDS? ALCHOHOL CAN MAKE THE WORLD A SILLY AND FUN PLACE YAY!
 * Actually the "Tonic" is never stated to be alcoholic and the big bad Grogh is portrayed as a drunkard loser at first.
 * Vegetables bad, nestle crunch good.
 * Averted in the ending of the retail version. The game's Aesop was actually: Save the environment!
 * The Brute: Grogh is more like this.
 * Build Like an Egyptian: The Reversed Pyramid level.
 * The Cameo: Rayman appears during the credits.
 * In return, the big general guy in the beginning appears in Rayman 2 where he sells the Giant Mecha to the Big Bad
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Doc.
 * Convection, Schmonvection: To the point that you can jump on lava on a friggin' Pogo-Stick!!!
 * Also, lava is powerless to water, apparently not heating it up or mixing with it in any way.
 * Deranged Animation
 * Dressing as the Enemy: The Chamaleon Powder allows you to do this if you step on the right platform. You have to use it a couple of times.
 * Everything Is Trying to Kill You: Living Vegetables armed with forks, boxing mushrooms, elderly mummies, toasters, scarabs, yo-yos, teeth....
 * Some exceptions include the large cow-like dinosaur. It can step on you, but it can't damage you.
 * In the special editon, it's eating grass in the south plain, and bite you by accident if you stand on its targeted patch of grass.
 * The Faceless: Agent XYZ.
 * Fan Disservice: The Huge Barman/woman at the beginning of the Glacier Cocktail.
 * Gag Boobs: during the Opening sequence, while Ed storms Grogg's Tower a huge Valkyrie-like woman with Huge Boobs can be seen singing for him. It's also a One-Scene Wonder.
 * Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Magic Mushroom, who randomly shows up to steal your final piggy bank.
 * The strange Cow-Like Dinosaur you have to free from ice cube somewhere is a friendly version of this trope.
 * Grimy Water: The poisoned water will kill you. Also the hot water from one of the latest levels.
 * The rainbow water will however not kill you.
 * Horny Vikings: Subverted in the PC version. Grogh doesn't actually gain the horned helmet until after drinking the Tonic.
 * Hub Level: The South Plain.
 * Impossible Hourglass Figure: Suzy again. Pratically Hourglass shaped indeed.
 * Jerkass: Grogh is more a Bully than a serious Dark Overlord.
 * Actually, the opening scene implies that he was actually just a drunkard, and after getting the tonic, he basically intends to sell alcohol.
 * He still behaves as a Jerkass, and did many nasty things to the others.
 * Karma Houdini: The Pharmacist.
 * Kiss of Life: if you chose Suzy (Continue) in the Game Over Screen, she'll give Ed several of them.
 * Lethal Lava Land: Doc's laboratory, also an Underground Level. Also the Canyon.
 * Mad Scientist: Doc. Also the Pharmacist, who's on Grogg side.
 * Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Suzy fits this trope.
 * The Man Behind the Man: Grogh is behind the Killer Vegetables.
 * Mooks: Killer Vegetables and also Helling Guards.
 * Newspaper-Thin Disguise: Agent XYZ uses one all the time - we never get to see what he looks like.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The reason why the plot even exists. So, Ed attempts to ingest a tonic of unknown properties to get the courage to ask a girl out, but it apparently had a funky flavor. Turned out the Tonic had more funkiness than just the flavor: The residue spit from the tonic also caused the screws to come to life and become crazy. He then attempts to eject the tonic from the ship... which lands on earth, specifically right on the recently evicted-from-the-bar drunkard Grogh, he drinks it, starts to mutate it, spills it in the conveniently nearby brook, causing the mutagenetic effects of the tonic to mutate the planet causing a LOT of oddities such as flying sheep and psychadelic skies and an overall background that looks like something taken from an acid trip, and then Grogh declaring that all drinks are on him. Shortly thereafter, Ed, busted for that action, is sentenced to clean up the mess he caused.
 * Noodle Implements: Sort of. How does Doc construct a catapult out of six copies of the following items: springs, propellors, jumping stones, domino stones and piggy banks?
 * Rule of Funny?
 * Noodle Incident: In the Special Edition, Doc mentions '[his] poor wife' while on the subject of how ed's second power-up, the blowpipe, had a few failed prototypes.
 * One-Scene Wonder: Many people, including: Grogh's buxom singer, The Pharmacist, The Barman, The Madman in the Pyramid and that Huge flying elephant in the Canyon.
 * Opera Gloves: Hard to say because of the lack of arms, but Suzy seems to wear these. (her hands are purple but her skin si whiteish).
 * Orcus on His Throne: Grogh himself isn't actively doing anything against Ed and leave all the work to his minions.
 * Except the game over screen, where he fucks up ed's limbless body pretty good.
 * Pass Through the Rings: The flight training levels.
 * Platform Game
 * Playing with Fire: One of the Killer Vegetables is a Giant Jalapeno who can breath fire at you.
 * Product Placement: You get popcorn that turns you into SuperEd from vending machines labeled... Nestle Crunch?
 * Well, in a Wackyland like that, this is the least weird detail, don't you think so?
 * In the N64 version of the game, the vending machines are labeled Newman's Own.
 * Projectile Toast: Used as a weapon by Doc's robot toasters.
 * Raymanian Limbs
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Glacier Cocktail and Ski Slope
 * Simple Staff: Ed's weapon. You can whack your enemies with it, but also use it as a lever.
 * Superhero: SuperEd, yeah!
 * Super Not-Drowning Skills: You can stay underwater indefinetly, but you're limited to shallow depths. Once you earn the flask, you can dive as deep as you want, as long as you want
 * Took a Level In Badass: Ed, you have to admit. He started as a goofy, incompetent Janitor bullied by others and ended up kicking asses with his stick, saving planets and getting a hot, human-like girlfriend.
 * Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Ed and Suzy.
 * Underground Level: Doc's cave, Vegetable HQ.
 * Video Game Flight: You can eventually use your bow tie as a delta aviator.
 * Vocal Dissonance: In the beta/special edition, Grogh sounds like a young prankster despite his big, viking-like look. (as well as his more fitting voice in the pre-rendered intro cutscene.)
 * Mind you, this was only in the beta/SE version. The Retail PC version had the same voice actor as in the intro.
 * You All Look Familiar: The Helling Guards. The only difference may be the outfit.
 * You Gotta Have Violet Hair: Suzy.
 * Wackyland: The whole world, thanks to Ed.
 * What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: Seriously, did you even read that story summary? Or the rest of the page? There's even a character called Magic Mushroom.
 * The game seems to promote it too, see Broken Aesop above.