If you don't know what Barbie is, you've probably never heard of grass either. To explain what Barbie is would be an insult to the intelligence of those who grew up in the 90s and early 00s (and yes, I know Barbie existed longer than those periods, but the people reading this likely grew up in the mentioned eras.) It's a given that popular material lays the groundwork for merchandise. I guess it makes sense, Barbie is, for all intents and purposes, a neutral figure when it comes to anything. You could put her into anything and it won't feel out of place.
With that in mind, we were spoiled for choice on TV movies and video games. Since the 2000s, with the sole exception of the Barbie's Horse Adventures titles, we've got these for the PC and handheld consoles. For girls back then, it was all about that PC, along with a GBA because hey, you gotta get that gaming fix while maxing out credit cards. The quality of each varies, while they aren't groundbreaking, let alone good, sometimes people do have genuinely nice things to say about them.
Now you might be thinking, "Channeleven, did you seriously play Barbie games when you were a kid? Or is this another blind review where you talk about something you've seen rather than played?"
To be honest... I did, and so did other people while they were high off their asses (seriously, try finding a Barbie LP that doesn't feature obnoxious cacklers)
Personal History
I've played three Barbie games in my lifetime. Bear in mind that I didn't go out of my way to beg my parents for them, my mother bought them for my sister, and I believe some of them were traded to her from a friend. I don't know what compelled me to play them. For at least two of them, I felt that they were just general platforms with a girly paint job, and for one of them, I guess it was the visual style, and the fact that it was among one of the only PC titles I had at the time that gave me more of a challenge.
The games I've played were Detective Barbie for the PC, Secret Agent Barbie and the game I'll talk about for the Game Boy Advance. I never completed the first, in fact I lost the disc, and I doubt my home computer could run the game. I also lost/never completed Secret Agent Barbie, I got stuck on a puzzle and I kept dying. I did manage to beat today's game though, then again how couldn't I beat it?
About the game
The game was published by Vivendi Universal Games, one of the few major publishers of the era that didn't make me want to chew barbed wire. They owned the license and, to be honest, given how many Barbie games there are, they struck a goldmine. The game was developed by WayForward Technologies, which should be a sign this game would be mildly decent, right? I mean, they made the Shantae series, as well as those GBA adaptations of Spongebob games. But bear in mind, they're a license developer first and a general developer second.
The game was based on the 2004 direct-to-video movie Barbie: The Princess and the Pauper. I have seen part of it, I might try to see it in full out of morbid curiosity.
Plot
The movie centers on Anneliese, a princess and Barbie stand-in and Erika, Barbie's brunette clone and the pauper, and given that this is a kids film, we also need talking animals. Here to fill that quota is Serafina, Anneliese's pet cat of a more pampered nature and Wolfie, a cat who clearly suffered from brain damage and is more in line with the canine. They have to contend with the evil Preminger who wants to usurp the finances of the kingdom with which Anneliese resides.
The last sentence essentially describes the shred of the movie's plot that's applied here. In the game, you have to do tasks for individuals while contending with Preminger's goons who drop pieces of a map after the main four deal with them at the end of every area. Then you go off to fight Preminger in the bell tower. Oh yeah, in the game Preminger wants to marry Anneliese. I don't know the age difference, but if it's what I think it is, Preminger is so evil he'd make for a model citizen in Sweeden.
Gameplay
It's a side scroller, par the course for many Game Boy Advance games. You get two characters for each level, for example, some levels you play as Anneliese and Erika, others you play as Serafina and Wolfie, and others in different mixes. The core of each level amounts to collecting things, but most items require using the right character to get it, as well as some level of teamwork, such as gates that pop up from time to time that require both characters to stand on opposing switches to keep it down. Here're how the characters operate.
Anneliese has a shield which she uses to cover herself from falling items and waterfalls. It's up to you to get into position so your partner could walk unscathed. You could also use the shield as a platform, namely with Serafina. Erika can sing, which is primarily used to knock hanging items loose and, less often, break glass that contains the items. Serafina could climb trees and swipe at things. Wolfie could dig and also swipe at things. There is a nice balance between the different characters and their abilities, and it does make for a nice challenge.
But there's one big problem. You could only move one character at a time. You could conceivably walk to the other side of a stage and your partner would stay behind with her thumb up her ass, and it'd take forever for you to get where the previously played character was, and believe me, you absolutely need your partner to get through certain obstacles or get items. It's almost like a desperate ploy to pad out the game length, it's not a challenge, it's monotonous.
There're two difficulty sections, easy and normal. On easy mode (actually a staple for most WayForward games), you don't lose health, you have less items to collect and to add to that, there're more items to collect than the amount of items you have to collect. If you have trouble getting one item, you have a chance to skip it and find another one. Now take the opposite of what I said about the easy mode, and you'll get the gist for the normal mode.
You have four worlds to traverse through, the kingdom, the forest, the mine and the village. Of all of these areas, the village one stuck with me because of its beginning. When you get into it the first time it looks like you're getting info from Benedict Arnold. In an alternate universe, Benedict Arnold lives peacefully in a Barbie world, and holy shit I read deeper into that than I should've. Each world ends with a boss fight, where you fight against Preminger's goons. For at least two of them, you actually do fight them, namely by hitting them as they're about to hurl something at you. Other times, it's just about getting to higher or lower ground and hitting a switch. Riveting.
As mentioned in the plot, it all ends at the bell tower where you fight Preminger. Is this any better than the prior levels? Nope. You play as all four characters one at a time, and the general gist of the fight is to knock down the two hanging weights to destroy the platforms Preminger stands on. It takes eight hits, four for one, and you have to wait until the weights stop shaking to hit them again. While fighting, you have to avoid Preminger who throws what I could only assume to be goo bombs (or maybe it's that spider-filled easter egg from Ed, Edd n' Eddy: The Mis-Edventures that had all of the spiders barf and die). Other times you have to dodge Preminger's dog Midas.
Per the conclusion, it's best described as a re-skin of previous level introductions. In other words, not worth the struggle especially if you play on normal difficulty.
Graphics
The graphics are decent. The character models used are actually well-crafted and have a decent connection to their movie counterparts. The backgrounds are easy on the eyes and mend well with motioning sprites.
Music
The music is decent too. Each track fits the atmosphere of the level you're in.
Overall
The game is just slightly below mediocre. In the long run, it's just very boring and annoying, especially given how many times you have to switch characters to keep one up with the other. The sad thing is, this game is even more empty than Secret Agent Barbie, which saved itself from equal mediocrity by having more shit to do. The real kicker is that while this game was produced by WayForward, a generally respected developer, Secret Agent Barbie was produced by EA DICE (formally Digital Illusions)'s Canadian division, and that division was infamous for gearing out licensed shit of the lowest calibre of quality.
When a game by a less-beloved developer has more meat on it than a game by a developer people count on, it's really a depressing sight to behold.
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