Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion
North American cover for the Nintendo 3DS version
Developer	Papaya Studio
Publishers	NA:Crave Games PAL:Deep Silver PAL: OG International (XL)
Composer	Billy Martin
Platforms	Nintendo 3DS,PlayStation 3,Wii,Xbox 360
Release	Nintendo 3DS NA: 2 June 2011 EU: 20 April 2012 AU: 2012 PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 NA: 15 November 2011 AU: 17 May 2012 EU: 18 May 2012[1]
Genre	Fighting
Modes	Single-player,multiplayer

Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion is a2011crossoverfightingvideo game developed by Papaya Studio and published byCrave Games, for theNintendo 3DS. It features characters from variousCartoon Network programs battling against one another. The game was released in June 2011 in North America and in April 2012 in Europe. An upgraded port,Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion XL, was released for theWii,PlayStation 3 andXbox 360 less than a year later.

Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion is aplatform fighter, with up to four players moving and battling on a 2D plane and trying to knock their opponents out of the arena.Each playable character has a unique set of moves they can use to attack their opponents, performed by pressing a direction in combination with one of the attack buttons. When players strike one another, glowing cubes will fall out of them; collecting these cubes will gradually fill the player's special meter. When full, the player can use their character's "Punch Time Explosion", a powerful attack that can deal heavy damage to multiple opponents. For example, Ben Tennyson turns into Ultimate Humungosaur and launches missiles all over the stage. Players can also use various items that appear randomly on the stage to attack their opponents, including an item that summons one of 19 assist characters (22 in theXL version) to aid the player. In theXL version, playable characters can team up with certain assist characters and do Synergy attacks. For example, Chowder eats a plate of Madame Foster's cookies and becomes morbidly obese as the latter rolls him around the stage. Players can choose between 21 different stages for battles (26 in theXL version). Many stages shift between multiple phases as the battle continues, and players may use stage elements in order to take out other players. For example, in the Dexter's Laboratory stage, players can pull two different levers, with one activating a conveyor belt and the other firing a deadly laser.

Players can choose from 18 playable characters drawn from 11 Cartoon Network programs. An additional eight characters were added to theXL version for a total of 26.

An unseen announcer, implied to beSpace Ghost, prepares to watch some television on his day off as he tunes into Cartoon Network. However, he discovers that an unknown force is causing chaos in the respective universes of some of its programs, with villains traversing between them and many heroes becoming corrupted. The announcer watches the events unfold, beginning with Ben Tennyson traveling to theChowder universe in pursuit of Vilgax. Ben restores a corrupted Chowder, but Vilgax escapes as theChowder universe is engulfed in static. Chowder and Ben are then pulled into the latter's origin program, where they oppose a corrupted Buttercup. She too is restored and, after travelling across the dimension, it begins to fade as well. However, Dexter arrives in a dimension-traveling capsule and rescues the trio. The allied heroes then use the capsule to travel to the network's programs one by one, defeating the displaced villains while restoring the corrupted heroes and recruiting them to their cause before their respective dimensions are terminated.

Having gathered a large team of heroes, the capsule prepares to make one more warp to save the network, but it is destroyed as the heroes are intercepted by the mastermind behind the events, the announcer's recently-purchasedremote control, which has since gained sentience. The device prepares to eliminate the heroes, but they inadvertently summonCaptain Planet, who rescues them. The heroes then defeat the remote control and it reverts back to its inanimate state, which Dexter uses to restore the balance between the network and send him and the other heroes back to their origin programs. Though relieved everything is back to normal, the announcer laments about no longer having a remote, forcing him to change the channel independently.

On 3 October 2011, Papaya Studio announced a home console version of the game, titledCartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion XL, which was released for theWii,PlayStation 3 andXbox 360.XL adds eight new playable characters to the roster, four of whom were assist characters in the 3DS version. The port also adds seven new assist characters, five new stages, and additional gameplay modes. An in-game shop allows players to purchase new playable characters, stages, alternate costumes and clips from the various Cartoon Network shows represented in the game. Alterations were made to the game's story mode to accommodate the new character additions.XL also revised parts of the game's voice acting, with some characters who were not voiced by their original actors on the 3DS version getting new voice clips by their actors from their respective series.

The European release of the game was delayed until nearly a year after the North American release. The game was released on 18 May 2012, in the UK; on 14 June 2012, in France; and on 22 August 2012, in Italy and Spain via thePlayStation Store.^[2]

Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion received mixed reviews. Jack DeVries ofIGN gave the game a rating of 4.5 and said "the fun comes in very small doses", and felt that "the levels, though aesthetically varied, are basic and boring", negatively comparing its gameplay to that of theSuper Smash Bros. series. The game was also criticized for not using many then recent Cartoon Network characters such as those fromAdventure Time andRegular Show and using characters from series that have ended prior to the game's release, withBen 10: Ultimate Alien being the only ongoing series at the time of release, as well as not using other popular former Cartoon Network characters likeCourage the Cowardly Dog,Cow and Chicken andEd, Edd n Eddy.^[4]

TheXL version of the game was slightly better received. IGN's Jack DeVries gave theXL version a rating of 5.0, saying that "Having so many characters in one game is cool, but the story is the laziest way to do it".^[5]

• MultiVersus, a 2024 platform fighter also featuring Cartoon Network characters

• Little Orbit's official page
• Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion atIGN
• Interview about Punch Time Explosion

• 2011 video games
• Cartoon Network video games
• Crossover fighting games
• Fighting games
• Multiplayer and single-player video games
• Nintendo 3DS games
• PlayStation 3 games
• Platform fighters
• Video games developed in the United States
• Video games set in the United States
• Video games about parallel universes
• Wii games
• Xbox 360 games
• Science fantasy video games
• Deep Silver games
• Crave Entertainment games
• Papaya Studio games

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