I’m a real big fan of the Powerpuff Girls and was interested in seeing how the new GBA game from BAM would play. Surprisingly, the game mixes super heroics into a side-scrolling action shooter. Even more surprisingly, it works! It’s similar to R-Type/Gradius but I was reminded more of Sunsoft’s old Superman arcade game, which featured flying and shooting. Powerpuff Girls Mojo A-Go-Go is a lot simpler than that game, though is still quite enjoyable.

The graphics aren’t extraordinary but are colorful, bright and get the job done. The cut-scenes are very nice, with very vivid colors and characters that looked ripped right from the show. There’s even snippets of speech, of the show’s narrator and Mojo Jojo’s sinister laugh.

Players simultaneously control Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup, though can only fight with one at a time. At any time, the girls can be switched by hitting the L button. If any one girl takes too much damage, they “lose the will to fight” and drop out. You can regain lost girls by finding 1-Ups, but obviously your best bet for success hinges on keeping all 3 girls alive.

The girls have two attacks: firing their eye beams or punching enemies. Punching does more damage, but you have to be close up to connect with your fingerless fists. In each level, there are objects, such as trees, lampposts or mailboxes that can be picked up and used as a weapon. Swinging or throwing such objects after they’re picked up can eliminate many enemies at the same time.

Power ups are scattered along the way, Chemical X for health, earthquake fists and triple beam laser vision. Power ups can be accumulated to strengthen one girl, or split up among the three, by switching off. The girls also have a combined super attack by hitting R. The nature of this attack depends on which girl initiates it. I haven’t gotten this to work too successfully yet, though it does look cool.

Another cool aspect of the game is that it has a fair amount of personality. The girls themselves have a few animations. For example, once while I was using Buttercup, Blossom & Bubbles started waving pom-poms and cheering in the background.

The citizens of Townsville are almost always in the backdrop of the Power Puff’s adventures, and the GBA game is no exception. Each level features various innocent folks (many recognizable from the show) - in a level, you may pass by the same person 5 or 6 times. Although the Powerpuff Girls are a bit more modern, repeating backgrounds is almost a standard for Hannah Barbara classic cartoons. It’s forgivable but hard not to notice. One of the characters did change their animation the 7th time I passed ‘em though…

The biggest flaw I’ve uncovered thus far is that the game scrolls the girls forward. There is no way to face behind you—which isn’t too big a deal, nor atypical for this type of game. Yet there are occasional attacks from behind. When it happens, it’s usually very avoidable, though it does seem somewhat awkward. I instinctually want to turn around & can’t.

So far, I like Powerpuff Girls Mojo Jojo A-Go-Go a bunch. At first, it seemed somewhat repetitive – but once I became engaged in the game, collecting gems and keeping the girls alive was challenging. There are so many enemies scattered around the screen, it can be hard to keep up. Like the show, the game is enjoyable for all ages. It’s good clean fun. It’s simple, yet fun. It’s not groundbreaking and fairly basic but it is faithful to the source material and entertaining. Fans of the series should definitely check it out. I’ll have a full review up soon, after sinking a bit more playtime in.