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Shrek Fairy Tale FreakDown
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Graphics & Sound:
Animated movies and games should really go together like cream and coffee. Most of the early Disney conversions were solid enough games, and a few gems like Tarzan really stood out from the bunch. Of course, Disney has lately shown they are as capable of releasing a total piece of junk as they are to put out great new games, so the formula for success on animation conversions has basically fallen apart. The most shocking thing to me is when a good looking animation piece like Aladdin can convert so poorly to a game like the awful Nasira's Revenge. At least in this respect, TDK Mediactive's conversion of Shrek to the Game Boy Color is a nice looking game on the surface. Fairy Tale FreakDown is the alternate title of this fighting game, and although most critics and audiences may be 'down' with the freaks in Shrek the movie, gamers will most likely have a different and less positive reaction. Fighters are not the most prominent genre on GBC, but especially the 2D or side-scrolling variety should, in theory, translate well to the small screen. X-Men Mutant Academy, although a fairly ordinary Fighter for PlayStation, made for a nice translation to GBC and wasn't a bad way to while away some free time. Shrek lacks much of what really defines a fighting game, and graphics contribute 50 percent of the problem. Not only does Shrek forego any side-scrolling action, other than game arenas a bit wider than the screen, but the characters just don't do much to stand out as individuals. They all have unique attacks, but the movement and delivery for each character is too similar. Controls are responsive, but nothing changes between characters. For a side-scroller with some item pickups or exploring, this might be okay, but this is arena combat, all the way. The levels are nice, with detail and color, but fighting through them is tedious at best. There's complete repetition in the music and sound, with nothing exciting during fights or in transitions to break the flow of things or reward successful battles. At the outset, it's nice to see good design sense in menus, levels or characters, but watching every one of the 9 fighters go through no more than 3 or 4 animations is a big ho-hum. The movie had enough panache, so what happened here? |
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Gameplay:
Uninteresting graphics don't have to equate to a bad game, and I would venture to say some Fighter fans might enjoy what Shrek has to offer. The big reservation I have saying that comes from poor character design in the game, which is generally a huge part of this genre. Opening up new and interesting characters is what we expect, but the sad reality is that all the characters are opened up within the first 4 or 5 rounds. After that, you only have a chance to replay the same levels with different characters, and none of them are so different from one another to make this very appealing. Seeing the entire game depends on how much patience you have and how well you know the moves. This is always true, of course. Shrek includes a Training Mode that works much like the big-screen Fighters. You get a chance to whale on an opponent and practice moves without fearing a counterattack. Health gauges show what damage you're doing, and if it seems like nothing does much damage, you're about right. Each of the pitifully few attacks each character has does a small amount of damage, so fast-paced and repetitive strategies work best. After some practice, you can move to the actual competition and pick a character. Some, like Shrek or Thelonius, feel draggy and slow but inflict heavy damage when they connect. Most others feel identical in your hands, but fight differently under the CPU control. As with all Fighters, learning weak points for each opponent spells victory. Special moves are completely overused by the CPU, to the point that you won't see some characters even try fighting up close. After a successful bout, points are awarded by combining things like health and time remaining, to give a total. Earning high scores will get you a Power-Up, and these tend to really swing the fight in your favor. Using a Power-Up will either cause your character to move faster, inflict more damage or take less damage. They can only be used after you take some damage yourself and drop to either 66 or 33 percent of your total health. Special button combinations activate the Power-Ups, but the process is totally clunky. Unlike items or special combos, you don't get to just use Power-Ups freely, and since you can't store more than one at a time you're stuck with remembering which you last earned along with how to make it work. But, since these attacks only work when you're low on health, the whole system is almost more pain than it's worth. For just the straight fighting action, Shrek is completely average, so gamers who loved the movie and really just want to play these characters might excuse poor mechanics. For the rest of us, it doesn't seem good enough.
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Difficulty:
Shrek is a button-masher's dream, and doesn't do much for the cautious or strategic gamer. Characters will pound you into jelly from afar, and throw specials at you while you're in the middle of punching them. They recover quicker and use Power-Ups to great effect, but they really are pretty dumb. Once you get their moves down, the fight is automatic. Characters like Gingerbread Man will stand far away and shoot projectiles at you, and won't fight hand-to-hand. That's okay, but dodging a steady stream of Gumdrops can make you feel like you're playing a Platformer rather than a Fighter. No character does anything surprising, and each level is pure formula. Shrek offers several levels of difficulty, which might suggest good replay value, but nothing major changes. The hardest level is just like the easiest, but faster.
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Game Mechanics:
Most times, you'd expect a fighting game to excel in this category, but Shrek falls on its face. Basic control is (A) and (B) button to punch or kick, and the control pad to move and jump, duck or block. Each character then has one unique move, and 2 special moves. I say unique versus special because the activation for a special move is the same between characters. The animations for moves are different, but it would have been nice to have at least 2-3 unique moves between characters. Really, each fighter is able to do about the same stuff, which doesn't lead to interest or specialization. For me, the fun part of fighting games is the creativity involved in overcoming an opponent's weakness by using your character's strengths. Obviously, this can be hard if your character is really slow and ends up in a fast fight, but most slow fighters will have something they can use to their advantage, even when mismatched. These characters never feel mismatched, because they all do about the same stuff. The result is a game that doesn't take any time to learn, but doesn't hold interest well at all. A password system lets you continue progress as you fight to become Ultimate Champion, and the manual does a fair job of outlining the game, including detail on the characters and their moves. We do have attention spans and memorization powers to support learning button combos, as proven by the popularity of skating and other extreme sports games. The Fighter is one of those mature genres that has to play by its own rules at this point. Sure, we've seen combinations of styles and side-scrolling fighters work well, but the arena-combat game needs more variety and depth than Shrek is prepared to offer. Sometimes, a license is just a license. Shrek doesn't make for a horrible, insulting game, but it falls short of even the average Fighter by its lack of interesting gameplay or individual character animations. Were this an adventure game, I'd love to see more pretty backgrounds, but fighting through arena after arena with boring characters steals the life out of this venture. GBC has seen better, and I suspect this game, like the T-Shirts, lunchboxes and party napkins, was just another line-item on the PR sheet for Shrek the movie. Instead of a great idea and some solid game concepts, we get a bunch of characters thrown into a mold and spit out as a mostly substandard game. |
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-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock |
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