If you’ve played the decade old Solomon’s Club or Tecmo’s recently released GBC title Monster Rancher Explorer, then you have a pretty good idea of what to expect from Tang Tang. The concept behind the game isn’t hard to pick up on: collect all the diamonds littering each level before the time runs out by throwing down any number of square boxes. You can either lay down a box directly in front of your character or one space below in front. If you do not like the box’s position, all it takes is a press of the A button to remove it.

Of course, to make things difficult there are plenty of enemies who are roaming around each of levels, but they can easily be destroyed with your trusty laser. Catch is, you only have three laser shots per continue, so you have to make them count.

In an attempt to provide some variety in Tang Tang, there are four characters to choose from, each having a theme attached to them. Fire is one of them, so the blocks the character lays down have a fire emblem attached to them, there is an overabundant use of the color red on each level and his laser shoots in the form of a fireball. There is no difference in the actual construction of levels hinging on what character is chosen, except that the bosses are unique for each of them (one might face a sun out to zap your brains out, while another will go up against a killer snowman bent on revenge).

On the surface, Tang Tang is fun. You play it; you enjoy it, wishing you had more laser shots. Then, as the challenge of the game settles in during the later levels (mostly beginning at the first boss on), the continues wither away to nothing. Ready to move back into the swing of things, you hit the Continue option on the game’s menu – except that it brings you to the first level of the first world. In an amazing lack of quality assurance, somehow Tang Tang made it out of Take-Two’s doors without the save feature intact. That means that no matter how far you get into the game’s 120 levels, chances are you'll only see about 10 of 'em; as soon as all the initial lives expire, it is back to square one.

Unless you feel like practicing each stage to perfection, Tang Tang starts to become extremely repetitive – fast. This might have been partially made up for if gamers could create their own puzzles, but sadly, that is not the case. Ultimately, it does not take long for Tang Tang to lose its appeal, and you start to wonder how much better it could have been if only Take-Two had not been so lazy.