The premise of Tang Tang is simple -- as one of four very cute little "Tangibles", you're supposed to gather a bunch of gems from each of the game's 30 one-screen stages. By tagging all the gems, you can create a warp portal that leads to the next stage. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Of course these gems aren't that easy to reach -- you'll need to create blocks and jump to the items. Complicating matters are enemies that not make you lose a life when they touch you, but also destroy your blocks. Although clever block placement can save you (a la Chu Chu Rocket), you also get a few shots in your blaster to take down the baddies. At the end of each world (every five stages), you'll come face to face with a gigantic boss. For these battles, you'll have your weapon upgraded to a two-way shot and gain infinite ammunition.

The game's characters are all animated well and shine with bright and vibrant colors. The whole look is very Amiga-ish in the best possible way. However, there's very little variety though the entire game -- a few background changes, modified block layout, a couple different bad guys, and there's a new stage, or world! The music is enjoyable and somewhat remniscent of a Sonic game, but there are only a few tunes on the cart. Sound effects are merely decent.

Tang Tang has a real pick-up and play feel. It's easy to understand and easy to control, though I'm not sure why Take 2 decided to map the standard shot to down plus A instead of to an unused trigger. You're given a selectable number of lives and continues, and the game auto-saves after each stage, so you can turn it off at any time and pick up almost where you left off. Unfotunately, the game's 30 stages fly by. They're not especially challenging, and they're all pretty short.

The game's packaging is decidedly misleading and lackluster. On the back of the box are screenshots of a game that looks like Tang Tang but is two player simultaneous -- the actual game itself is not. Take 2 also claims that there are 120 levels of "increasing difficulty". Not only does the game not get much harder, there are only really 30 levels that you can play through as four almost-identical characters. Unlike many other GBA games, there's sparse solid information on the game's packaging or in the instruction manual (which is extremely thin and simply tells you to use the in-game tutorial). None of that really detracts from the game, but having 120 difficult levels with a two-player option would make Tang Tang an truly excellent game. As it is, it's only a bit above average.