I'd like to meet the executive that felt it would be a great idea to adapt a sitcom into a video game. With dinosaurs.
Supposedly, as the story goes, somebody's stolen Binford's latest line of tools and hidden them around the television studios. It's up to Tim Taylor to get them all back.
This involves fighting dinosaurs, giant moths, scorpions, knights, and more using various powertools.
Makes perfect sense.
The weapons are honestly the best part. There's a surprising variety, including a nail gun, flamethrower, chainsaw, dynamite, arc welder, and more. And all of them can be upgraded by collecting another of the same weapon. There's also a grappling gun, functioning similarly to Bionic Commando. It becomes pivotal to master it by the end of the first "stage."
The graphics are respectably bright and colorful. Tim has some personality to him. The levels are appropriately unique.
The health system works like the original Sonic titles; if you have bolts, you can take a hit. If you don't have bolts and take a hit, you die.
The game's almost impossible. You have to track down a number of tool crates in each level to advance. Unfortunately enemies usually take upwards of five hits to kill and are constantly firing some sort of projectile. Each "stage" is a collection of five levels with the same theme. The first is prehistoric. Unfortunately, when you lose all your lives and choose to continue, you're put back at the first level of whatever stage you're on. So it's unnecessarily difficult to advance. So it becomes mind-numbing repetition to find and remember where all the enemies and crates are.
Precision jumping becomes essential in the second stage. That's unfortunate as precision jumping is also a pipe dream. Tim slips and slides around like he's got Crisco on his shoes. And steering yourself in mid-air is similarly difficult.
In short, Home Improvement is one of the hardest SNES games you can submit yourself to. Is it worth it? There's some satisfaction in toppling a nearly impossible task, but it'll take a lot out of you.
Last Words: It's rare these days, but that doesn't mean it's good. Buy it if you're a collector, sadist, or avid fan of the show.