The Shrekoning: Shrek SuperSlam (Xbox)

The Shrek franchise’s presence in video games began with a shallow and poorly designed fighting game, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if it never returned to that genre again. However, just because an idea was done terribly once doesn’t mean the concept lacks potential, and four years after Shrek: Fairy Tale Freakdown, Dreamworks’s gross green ogre got his friends together once again for some fighting action. Choosing to go with full 3D movement in platforming arenas this time around, Shrek SuperSlam certainly wasn’t aiming to be a traditional fighting game experience and the developer Shaba Games actually seems to have put an impressive amount of thought and creativity into the experience. In fact, Shrek SuperSlam is perhaps the second best known Shrek game because many years after release people picked it up in what at first was meant to be an ironic joke about playing the game competitively but soon evolved into a small community actually interested in seeing the potential this fighter’s design holds.

Shrek SuperSlam can be played with anywhere from two to four players with AI opponents available to fight in place of them if only one player is present. The battle system is focused almost entirely around a Slam system where players attack each other to build up energy for a special move. There are no health meters so being caught in a string of attacks isn’t necessarily a death sentence, but once a character’s Slam is fully charged they are able to execute a unique ability that is the crux of how players win a match. Any person hit with a Slam attack will lose one point while the person using the Slam attack will gain one, with a possible SuperSlam occurring if one player can hit all three opponents in a four way melee with their Slam attack. Luckily, if you do manage to get hit multiple times by a Slam while it’s still active there will be no additional points awarded, but this does mean the battle system is entirely based around building up this energy and then trying to score with it. Different characters do have different Slam attacks, Shrek having a fart blast that hits the immediate area while someone like Donkey charges around the screen and can aim his ram to better chase his targets, although if you do miss entirely, many Slam moves will give you the chance to try it again a few more times before the power runs out. This does help characters whose powers require more than a single button press to use well, and while there is definitely a hierarchy in usefulness based on quickness, range, and reach, once you’re positioned correctly a Slam will be easy enough to execute effectively.

Theoretically the Slam system is actually a fairly fine fit for a kid’s game, no one ever eliminated from the fight or left reeling after getting hit by someone who knows their character’s attack options better. Normal matches end after a set amount of time and whoever has the most points is declared the winner, but this system meant to fit the party fighter atmosphere does come with a cost. A savvy player may realize quickly that once they’ve got their Slam in, especially in a four player match where they can possibly earn three points with it, they don’t have much incentive for engaging in the fight anymore. So long as the player in the lead can successfully avoid the other players they won’t be able to reduce their score, build up Slam energy so easily, or even hit the escaping player if they do have a Slam technique ready. The way to fix this would be to have the arenas the fights take place in restrict your ability to retreat, and there are certainly stages that do so like the interior of Quasimodo’s bell tower, the medieval twist on glitzy shopping districts in Romeo Drive, and the small mine arena that even references the level from the Shrek 2 console game with its decor. However, there are also levels like the Kung Fu Dojo, the Beanstalk, and the Medieval Kitchen that parodies Iron Chef where the more vertical level design makes it all too easy to retreat to high ground and stall. In fact, some of these levels like Dragon’s Hall have areas so high up the AI opponents legitimately do not know how to reach you if you climb up to them, and getting there isn’t actually that hard for a human player.

This simple exploit of the battle system isn’t too hard to realize unfortunately and even some stages that don’t give you the room to run around still struggle with the viability of stall tactics. One incredibly creative level has you fighting atop a birthday cake being carried by a giant gingerbread man, and while most levels feature invisible walls on their borders, this one allows you to jump off the side without penalty, teleporting back onto the cake afterward. If you get the lead here, you can instead wait on the edge of the cake and jump off if other player’s come near, repeating the tactic as necessary without anything to dissuade the tactic. It is definitely a shame the stage design actually pokes the biggest hole in the game’s fighting system as the levels are often well conceived, imaginative, and surprisingly reactive. Rather than simply having a gingerbread level for the series regular character Gingerbread Man, you have a gingermansion with icy exterior and a riff on MTV Cribs with its presentation playing into a gangster riches lifestyle. One stage takes place on the table of a giant, and since Slam moves send you flying into parts of the level, you can end up hitting into him as he snoozes, activating his cuckoo clock, or otherwise smashing into his enormous household items. Many levels can get absolutely wrecked if enough Slam moves are used, some even removing viable ground to fight on like the Poison Apple Inn whose staircase can be completely demolished to separate the two stories. Parts of the level can be hazards or objects to throw as well, and the level based on the Friar’s Fat Boy fast food parody from the second film is even given an entirely new jingle with lyrics, although that song can play during any fight as can the main theme that seems to be trying to imitate Blitzkrieg Bop.

Shrek SuperSlam’s intricate stages are part of pulling it out of the hole its Slam system dug for it, and there are other aspects of its battle mechanics that do help it some. All characters have a shield they can activate to absorb attacks, the attacker only getting a fraction of the Slam energy for hitting it and the defender able to potentially break away from the combo between attacks. Multiple jumps, aerial dodges, wall jumps, and other movement options do definitely make it clear why some levels have a leaning towards verticality even though those options don’t totally weaken the impact of stalling tactics, but there are also characters with projectiles and greater maneuverability. Dronkey is a hybrid donkey/dragon whose flight allows for some aerials you might be able to harass retreating players with, and their father Donkey actually has a helicopter twirl in the air that slows his descent and is actually a great tool for approach. Robin Hood, Red Riding Hood, and a newly invented witch character named Luna have a good mix of projectiles for long range damage but it’s not too oppressive and shields can be used to easily reflect projectiles if activated with decent timing, although again having the shielding option balances the game in one way but doesn’t restrict players from running away and can even slightly help with it.

Most attacks are executed with a mix of X and Y attacks, the specific moves mostly based on the order of simple inputs rather than anything too complex. Some combos have better range or might even break through shields, but there are definitely characters who come up short like the Cyclops who can leave himself vulnerable after even a basic combo. You can find a good range of fighting styles though as they variably emphasize speed, strength, or long range options, the game actually featuring a total of 20 characters once you’ve unlocked everyone. Many of them are familiar characters from the films like Puss in Boots and Prince Charming and the game even makes the human and ogre forms of Fiona into separate characters who do feel distinct, but there are also new faces or ones you’ve likely seen in other Shrek games like the ever popular Red Riding Hood. Some of the unlockable characters play similarly to ones from the base roster, the oddly named but still bubbly unicorn Anthrax having some similarities to fellow equine Donkey. Each character does have a fairly unique Slam move though and since load screens give you a quick rundown of a character’s attack options it’s not hard to learn the differences between similar fighters and start to integrate their small combos into how you play them, especially in more chaotic levels that might make the usual simple but effective pummeling a little harder to pull off.

While the multiplayer experience is likely meant to be the main draw of Shrek SuperSlam, a lot of thought was put into the single-player content. The game’s story mode is structured as a series of tales told by Shrek and his friends to the Dronkey children as they go to bed, these often having silly introductory cutscenes that capture the humor and character personalities from the film franchise surprisingly well. They don’t have their original voice actors but the game does carry on the mix of modern sensibilities layered over fairy tale trappings and comes up with some fun little scenarios for this short story mode, but the true heart of the single player and where you’ll unlock most of the extra characters, costumes, and other content is the Mega Challenge Mode. Mega Challenge Mode is a hearty series of multiple challenges and tournaments with special rules and set-ups to draw more out of the game’s battle system. In the challenges you aren’t always just going for the most Slam points, you might need to protect another character, get in a shield deflection battle where the projectile increases in speed with every deflection, or toss a bunch of Gingerbread Men into an oven before you run out of time. The challenges actually legitimately start to get difficult over time as more opponents threaten you and the rule sets shift to harder goals like not getting hit once in a single minute match. Tournaments take on the form of more familiar Slam-focused fights but have changing conditions as well such as sometimes locking you in as a specific character or having you up against a team of foes instead of fighting in free-for-alls, this mode good at getting you acclimated to the cast and training you to better understand how to win a fight as tougher conditions require it. Bonus missions even take on almost minigame-like forms as you need to do things like navigate small courses properly, Mega Challenge lacking the story content but still a remarkably sound concept for giving solo players something engaging and rewarding to do.

Multiplayer has a few variations as well within its customizable rules. You can have battles where every single attack counts as a Slam or fights focused on maintaining a position to earn points, that mode at least forcing conflict more while the single attack Slams make comebacks easier and stalling harder to successfully execute. Items are also part of the mix in Shrek SuperSlam although the ones available shift with the stage. Some like the fart wand send out a strong blast of gas around you and can make earning Slam energy easy, but others like the one that places aerial mines might be hard to lure players into. Potions can provide things like speed boosts or even immediate Slam power, one power up sends you rolling around for easy damage and brief invincibility, and some stages have purely damage focused weapons like a fiery sword or fairy firing gun. Customization can change certain things like a round’s time limit or if you lose points for being Slammed and one option does allow it to be a race to the most Slams, this appearing in single player modes as well to break away from the problems with focusing solely on earning the highest score in a set amount of time, but it does feel like you need to place a lot of caveats on how you play to get to a version of Shrek SuperSlam where you can enjoy all the work put into content outside of the fighting mechanics.

THE VERDICT: Shrek SuperSlam is an imaginative four player arena fighter with interactive levels, a great concept for solo play in the Mega Challenge Mode, and even some decent humor in the story scenes. Characters mostly feel distinct and a nice range of customizable rules lets you find a set that suits your player group, but Shrek SuperSlam’s attention to appearance and personality is undermined by the way the Slam system works. The fighting system centralizes around a mechanic where you can only earn points by building up energy and unleashing it and it’s not hard to realize how easy it is to keep a lead with stalling tactics and retreating in levels that are sometimes too conducive to such unexciting but effective play. The game’s AI can’t even keep up with it sometimes, and with the fighting system having decent movement options but rather lacking attack variety, Shrek SuperSlam’s actual battling ends up holding back an otherwise impressively realized fighter.

And so, I give Shrek SuperSlam for Xbox…

A BAD rating. I didn’t want to give Shrek SuperSlam this rating. There is an uncharacteristic amount of attention given to aspects of this Shrek tie-in game that could have easily been phoned in, but the levels are creative and the action not only impacts it but the fights can change because the Slams that have damaged the area have removed platforms or put more hazards or throwable objects into play. Mega Challenge Mode is such a strong concept for single-player play that anyone designing a fighting game should take note of how some simple organization and small rule shifting within the game engine can add a decently robust way to play alone besides fighting AI players in normal battles. The Story mode tries to capture the personality of Shrek’s cast and world, and the Friar Fat Boy’s jingle is one of those extra additions that makes it seem like the team at Shaba Games really wanted to make something out of this fighter. Unfortunately, it is all based around a fighting system that seems to on one hand try to encourage participation with no true eliminations but incentivizes avoidance of each other if you have the lead or want to deny each other points. The battle system does have a few of the important hallmarks of cast variation like the different niches when it comes to air options, damage potential, and ranged attacks, but I haven’t even gone into things like how almost every character has an infinite combo and wall jumps can make stalling easy since the invisible barriers that are meant to keep you in some stages are also available for infinite wall jumping. While there are extra layers of technical skill to be found in the systems since they are more than just basic attack options they also lend themselves to exploitation too easily in a game where all but the most restricted of rulesets can be impacted negatively by their presence, and even in a setup where everything has been tailored to try and avoid these issues the fighting is still not quite there thanks to the simple attack strings being less than exciting.

The people who took a closer look at the game after its release did notice the balance issues and technical problems and have actually worked to modify the game’s code to make Shrek SuperSlam into a more playable game, and I certainly believe this is the right way to play it if you are interested. Shrek SuperSlam is a game with a lot of love put into the extra parts of its design that hangs all those format and stage concepts on a rickety core, but unless you polish up those basics then you won’t be enjoying the imaginative levels because of what you’re actually doing in them. I have not played the mod, but I can still see the potential burbling on Shrek SuperSlam’s surface, and I believe younger players might still have a good time with it for small bursts of multiplayer because of its nearness to being something decent. In fact, a few house rules and careful level selection can maybe salvage some of the experience even if the battle system might be a little simple at its heart. I want to see the game Shaba Games could have clearly made if they hadn’t invested so heavily in the Slam system because Shrek SuperSlam deserve to be more, the attention given to so many parts of the experience just needing some decent fighting mechanics to actually hold it all together.