You can play with the arcade-style four separate buttons for left/right forward/backward paddling, but that didn't feel great to me on a pad--in the arcade you can use both hands to slap at the things, you know; fortunately, they also made it so you can just move around with the d-pad, and that works great! Well done, there. I mean sure the buttons were a noteworthy gimmick but it's probably just way easier and less frustrating with the d-pad. Not that I can remember all that clearly, but I did play this now and then in the arcade as a kid. Don't think I ever got very far back then!
I didn't think I'd play through it but I guess I was just having too much fun! Herding the tube through the bonus gates is kind of addictive, and it's fun to see all the silly things threatening to pop your tube--although the worst are just the branches sticking up out of the water, especially when there's way more of them in the 2nd loop.
Darn branches! Took me a while to get it through my melon that I could swat away most threats by beaning them with cans, so I took a lot of actually cannable deaths in the first loop particularly, dargh. Funny how the cola cans in the Black Forest stage are black instead of red. ^ _^ Them dragons are hazardous!
Fun game! Did I ruin it for myself by crediting through? Could I play it for score? I mean it does give you a total score at the end anyway, I suppose you could still do it that way; probably dying less would net you a larger score or something by the end?