Artificial Sweeteners, Sarcasm, and Cynicism
As I write this piece on The Powerpuff Girls: Bad Mojo Jojo for the Game Boy Color, I am completely shitfaced and drunk and stoned and very deep into adulthood; at this moment, I am the exact opposite demographic from the one that the developers at Sennari Interactive intended for this game; that demographic being: kids who begged their parents to take them to Toys “R” Us after school to buy some Crazy Bones and happened to wander into the computer games aisle only to find their favorite Cartoon Network cartoon wrapped in Game Boy Color packaging with a $50 price tag stamped on it – in 2000.
Yes, Game Boy Color games cost $50, even in the year 2000. I remember. I was there. I was that kid.
The bottom line is this: if Cartoon Network executives knew that a drunk man in his thirties would be writing a piece containing the words “shitfaced,” “drunk,” or “stoned” for their beloved The Powerpuff Girls: Bad Mojo Jojo and releasing that piece in a highly esteemed computer games magazine, those executives would be sending their goon squad to that man’s office to cut off his fingers, thereby ensuring that he neverever puts digital pen to paper again. And I imagine that goon squad would look very much like villains from The Powerpuff Girls.
The Rowdyruff Boys could be descending upon my location at this very moment.
It’s well known that the 2000s Cartoon Network-branded Game Boy Color games are merely palette swaps with different intellectual property names slapped-on, but The Powerpuff Girls: Bad Mojo Jojo has a unique twist: it’s the first in the mythical The Powerpuff Girls Game Boy Color Trilogy; the other two games being: The Powerpuff Girls: Paint the Townsville Green and The Powerpuff Girls: Battle HIM. Each game allows you to play as one of three prepubescent Chemical-Xers: Blossom, Buttercup, or Bubbles; and has you fighting a different group of villains in each title.
Cartoon Network executives clearly wanted to capitalize on mom’s hard-earned-waitressing-money by coming up with diabolical ways to get children to buy the same game three times. When we were children, being unknowingly taken advantage of by corporate goons was fun; as adults, it’s just another boring day in Townsville. I guess we can blame Pokémon for the Mephistophelian trend of let’s-release-the-same-game-with-minor-differences-as-an-entirely-separate-game-at-full-price-and-incentivize-children-to-buy-them-through-playground-shame-and-ridicule.
The Powerpuff Girls was created by cartoonist Craig Douglas McCracken in 1998; he also helped direct Dexter’s Laboratory, which released around the same time and had a strikingly similar artistic style, albeit Dexter’s Laboratory was created by the legendary Genndy Tartakovsky, known for creating the truly mythical Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoons. Don’t get these cartoonists confused; one created the greatest thing in the Star Wars extended universe, and another created a cartoon featuring a very irresponsible father who uses his three genetically engineered children for casual vigilantism.
That’s not a crack on Craig – I am getting wasted and writing about someone else’s creations for a zero-reader computer games blog while he’s had more success doing what he loves than I could ever dream of.
While The Powerpuff Girls was never one of my favorite cartoons as a kid, the significance of one of the villains spitting blood whilst being kicked in the mouth by Buttercup during the opening was not lost on me; being one of the few times blood was shown in a children’s show – and that’s special because this violence inspired me to become that 2000s Toys “R” Us kid who begged his grandma to buy the The Powerpuff Girls: Bad Mojo Jojo during one fateful 2000s summer. My friend also had the game and I wanted to battle him because we both knew all three games had link-cable-functionality but we soon found out that the link-cable-functionality was only for trading collectibles found in the game’s levels and the collectibles were nothing more than blurry pixel art and we were sorely disappointed but we played and beat our respective versions regardless because back then you got a new game once in a blue moon and you savored every moment with those blue-moon games because they were all you had until the next cerulean satellite.
*something resembling an oval with pink eyes rams a man wearing a prison jumper
I asked that same friend if he remembered playing The Powerpuff Girls on Game Boy Color with me during that warm 2000s Charleston summer and he stared at me with a dumbfounded look on his face, indicating that this stuff is far more important to me than it is to him. And that’s probably a bad thing for me; a sign that I shouldn’t be waxing nostalgic on childhood frivolities so often; perhaps my brain power could be put to better use than writing over 1000 words on games that no one has thought about in over two decades and that are clearly targeted toward children?
No – it is he who is wrong, not I.
But I have been waxing far too long; you’re here for the riveting gameplay review, of course – so it’s time to start waning.
The Powerpuff Girls: Bad Mojo Jojo and its two sisters are side-scrolling beat-em-ups with controls as slippery as four glasses of wine at a dive bar after getting into a big fight with your girlfriend; all you can do is punch, kick, and fire some special-liquid-attack provided you have enough Chemical X in your bloodstream. There is no jump button, but holding up on the directional pad makes your character fly for a brief period, which never feels quite right. The levels range from The Professor’s Laboratory to Townsville Rooftops to Pokey Oaks School Playground to The Mouth of a Volcano and they all contain a non-zero-number of barely-hidden collectibles meant to be traded with friends using the link-cable-functionality. The enemies are mostly big dudes in prison jumpers with large muscles and guns; attacking said prison people is a combination of very-specific-angles and luck and always-taking-damage because you got too close to the enemy in the process of attacking. The bosses are just more-dangerous versions of prison dudes and there is no real strategy involved in anything and it’s about as entertaining as playing tic-tac-toe with a six-year-old who cheats.
The Powerpuff Girls Trilogy is an uninspired palette-swap cash-grab meant to encourage kids to trade in-game collectibles with their friends or – for those with no friends – buy all three versions and trade the collectibles with themselves in what amounts to the ultimate foreshadowing of lifelong depression. Of course, kids never did either of these things because the collectibles are lame and the game just isn’t fun to play. Cartoon Network tried to take advantage of children by tricking them into buying their insipid shovelware cash-grab games like Professor Utonium took advantage of three small children to fight crime in Townsville.
Except, Cartoon Network failed. The Powerpuff Girls Trilogy bombed commercially upon release and some Cartoon Network executive somewhere probably got fired for pitching the idea.
Instead of Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice; The Powerpuff Girls trilogy is Exploitation, Corporatism, and Everything Wrong With the Licensed Games Industry. And, as a result, I am full of artificial sweeteners, sarcasm, and lots and lots of cynicism – thanks Cartoon Network.
(Originally published on 4/8/2024)