I firmly believe that Adventure Time is one of the finest animated shows ever created. It's one of those rare cartoons that hits kids and adults equally; one that fizzes with delightful invention, and one that mined every last one of its wonderful cast of characters for surreal comedy and heartbreaking tragedy for ten unforgettable years.
I love Adventure Time with all my heart. So it's a source of constant frustration to me that there has never been a video game adaptation of the show that fully realises the potential of the source material.
There have been a handful of Adventure Time games over the years, of course. Some of them are pretty damn good. Some of them are awful. Unfortunately even the best Adventure Time game - a Zelda-style top-down adventure game called Secret Of The Nameless Kingdom - left me feeling as if it had been pushed out the door before it could be polished into something truly special by a team of developers who absolutely nailed what they could in the time they had.
But as is so often the case with games based on hit cartoons, it's rare that they can be anything more than acceptable before they're put on shelves in an attempt to cash in on the license.
The most recent adaptation was a 3D RPG with shades of The Wind Waker and full voice acting from the cast of the show. It had everything it needed to be a hit, until it became clear that it was far too short and felt, in many places, unfinished. It's hard not to wonder whether the people making decisions at the highest levels in regards to these games have just assumed that only kids will be buying such adaptations, and that kids care less about actual quality. This is rubbish on both counts, obviously.
It's unlikely that a developer is ever going to be able to put as much time or care into an Adventure Time game as a AAA release like The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, or Red Dead Redemption 2. That's obvious, but it still breaks my heart to think about all that missed potential, especially when it's clear that every developer who has worked on an Adventure Time game understands what makes the show so great. It's just that no studio has ever been given the time to see a project through for as long as a game based on a world as vast as Adventure Time truly deserves.
It's a well-established fact that Finn and Jake's world is heavily inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, which itself is a universe filled with endless possibilities. From dungeon trains and Ice Kings to sentient mountains, candy kingdoms, and demon swords, Adventure Time is absolutely begging to be turned into a fully open-world RPG packed with sidequests, sharp writing, and plenty of surprises. In my head, my dream adaptation of Adventure Time is a lot like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt... just with markedly different visuals and a lot less sex.
With the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X/S showing us increasingly realistic looking worlds and characters, a next-gen Adventure Time RPG would be a great chance to go completely the other way. Let us bathe in the bright and breezy aesthetic of Ooo as we explore kingdoms of fire, ice, candy, and slime. Let us slice and dice our way through an adventure game that isn't focused on grit and unbelievably hard moral choices, but on apple thieves, everything burritos, and bacon pancakes.
All I want - all I need - is for Cartoon Network to allow a developer the time and energy to properly bottle the spirit of Adventure Time, and give it to us in an open-world game. Give us two bros exploring a fantasy world. Give us a seemingly endless series of utterly bizarre quests for strange characters; a stripped-back, laid-back, genuinely entertaining deconstruction of the last decade of AAA open-world titles that boasts the same level of quality, humour, and heart that made the show such a hit. A genuinely engrossing and incredible Adventure Time video game is possible. We all know what time it is.
Featured Image Credit: Cartoon Network