Shrek: Reekin’ Havoc (GBA)

After the subversive fairy tale movie Shrek changed the tone of animated features for years to come, the video game industry rode the ogre’s fame as much as it could, but since a sequel to the film wouldn’t be coming until 2004, the period between required developers to think of a way to keep things fresh, and so came Shrek: Reekin’ Havoc.

While the previous Game Boy Advance title Shrek: Hassle at the Castle was content to flesh out the events of the films, Shrek: Reekin’ Havoc tried to make it’s own plot without shaking things up too much. Set after the events of the film, the ghost of Lord Farquaad seeks to get revenge on the fairy tale creatures who he believes responsible for his demise and his new ghostly powers give him a few skills to better pull it off. Shrek and Fiona were just about ready to relax when a fairy comes and tells them that Farquaad’s ghost is spreading chaos across the land by turning good fairy tale characters evil, so Shrek and Fiona set off to fight former friends and new enemies. The set-up works about as well as it can, even though it’s obviously a derivative stop-gap kind of plot that aims to not potentially conflict with future sequels. The setup does mean that Shrek and Fiona will be able to face recognizable faces from the movie like Pinocchio and the Big Bad Wolf as well as new enemies like the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk and Peter Pan’s shadow.

The presentation, however, is a bit strange. I can’t quite put my finger on exactly why the squat cartoon sprites of the characters seem so odd, but it feels a bit like you’re playing as the bobbleheads of these characters due to the graphical style. It doesn’t hurt the game at all, if anything it makes the sprites pretty clear and readable despite being on a Game Boy Advance screen, so the caricature character design can be acclimated to and some levels have fairly detailed and fun background design, especially the village made of sweets. The music tries to get as close to the tone of the movie as possible but can’t quite make it since it can’t use licensed music, but the energetic fairy tale rock feels appropriate despite that. The strangest choice though comes with Fiona. At the end of Shrek, the princess became an ogre full-time, but despite taking place after the movie, Fiona is back to being human for this game. It’s probably one part laziness since they could carry over Hassle in the Castle’s sprite and one part having a more attractive character to play as, so it’s understandable but inaccurate all the same. The game’s box even has its own deception on the front to further push making the game look better, as Donkey only appears once during the whole game as a hostage and the Dragon is relegated to only appearing in the game’s backstory, not to mention a Shrek fan could quite easily tell the boxart is just a rearrangement of one of the movie’s promotional posters.

Inaccuracies and recycling aside, Shrek: Reekin’ Havoc is a somewhat standard 2D beat-’em-up. All the action is on one plane, the player taking either Shrek or Fiona through stages to pound on baddies until the boss is found and defeated. The game certainly favors Fiona much more than Shrek, as four of the six levels have you play as her with only one bothering to tell you why she’s taking center stage. Most of Fiona’s levels follow the standard design, but when the game does give you Shrek, it throws in a variation or two like climbing a beanstalk while avoiding falling beans or riding a boat while dodging cannonballs. In most stages, your goal is straightforward even if your path branches a bit, as finding the minibosses and boss are the only requirement to finish the level. However, each level has a few fairy tale characters locked up in cages you can save, and based on your score in a stage from beating enemies and finding those characters, you’ll get a letter rating, this being the game’s attempt to keep you around for repeat plays after you finish its short story.

The only problem with this design is the actual combat doesn’t have much going on. You start off with a simple two-hit combo, a sliding kick, a charge attack, and a jump kick. You can collect special orbs to bring your basic combo up to four and you have a special invincibility mode you have to build up during the course of the level that will last for a limited time when activated. Beat-em-up’s sometimes end up with fairly limited attack options, but the bigger issue with Shrek: Reekin’ Havoc are the things you are fighting. Most enemies will walk towards you, you punch them once, and they’re gone. There are flying enemies that you have to jump and kick to instantly kill or usually can just keep walking to avoid, and there are a few enemies you might have to dodge a predictable attack before easily dispatching them. For the most part, that is the full extent of combat. Even when you meet enemies who can take more than one hit, your full four hit combo will get rid of them easily enough, the game’s only counter to that being having more than one enemy on screen who might hassle you during it. Outside of very basic battles tipped heavily in your favor, most of your time is spent wandering around stages with split paths, your navigation only very rarely impeded by the need to push objects to reach higher places or having to break through boulders and boxes with your charge attack.

The combat isn’t without its highlights though, mainly coming in the form of its minibosses and bosses. Rather than just landing punches and winning, these sturdy foes can actually take chunks off your health bar with attacks you must pay attention to, many of them having some gimmick that can actually take you down if you aren’t prepared. The Big Bad Wolf, for example, repels you with his breath and throws boxes as you approach, making you have to carefully work your way in before he can blow you back again. Others like the Pied Piper and Peter Pan’s shadow have their attacks fill screen real estate so you have to find the safe spots and keep your temporary invincibility in your pocket until it’s absolutely needed. These bosses show that even with a simplistic fighting style that Shrek: Reekin’ Havoc wasn’t a lost cause, but most of the time spent with the game is breezing through easy enemies in twisting stages, so the brief boss battles aren’t quite good enough to pull Reekin’ Havoc out of the muck.

THE VERDICT: The beat-’em-up genre has many games that can get old as you play them, often due to a lack of attack options and enemy variety, but Shrek: Reekin’ Havoc hits you right out the gate with those limitations and it’s hard to stay interested in such a shallow experience for long. The bosses and mini-bosses put up a good fight at least, requiring actual though to beat and some caution, but even the regular enemies who almost shake up the formula can be dispatched far too easily once you understand them, leaving the game with just a lot of bland filler between the only decent fights.

And so, I give Shrek: Reekin’ Havoc for the Game Boy Advance…

A BAD rating. Most of Shrek: Reekin’ Havoc is a dry, straightforward experience with little to do and hardly any challenge in doing it. Bad guys don’t really put up a fight so much as have an attack that might hit you if you let them execute it, but almost all of them can be dealt with by basic attacks like your default combo or the surprisingly effective slide kick. Many enemies with projectile attacks require only basic awareness and jumps to avoid, so the only real obstacle to your progress are the boss fights which would fit in nicely in a better beat-’em-up. They’re still not outstanding battles, but they can finally give you a run for your money and force you to think of how to best approach the battle. Even then, their moderate challenge isn’t enough to make the build-up through winding level layouts worth it. Thankfully it doesn’t put in anything overly annoying in your path and puts health pretty close to moments that could be, so you can zip through the short game without getting bogged down too much by its issues.

With Shrek 2 coming out the year after this game, perhaps it would have been better to wait for the new material to work with. Instead, we got a weird Shrek side story that definitely reeks even though it’s not downright rancid.