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Strawberry Shortcake: Strawberryland Games

Posted December 14th 2006 by DC Garcia.

I grew up adoring Strawberry Shortcake. The line was a childhood favorite and I have even kept a Blueberry Muffin scented doll that's probably older than most of our readers yet still smells berrylicious. I fully supported the revival a few years ago, even though it broke my heart to see my favorite berry pals modernized and cut me deep down to find that The Purple Pieman had been all but forgotten. But alas, I accepted all the changes, encouraged my own daughter, (coincidentally the same age I was when I discovered the fruit-scented dolls), to enjoy her Strawberry Shortcake toys and was really looking forward to playing this game. Then I actually did.

The premise of this game is that at the Nearly-Once-a-Yearly Strawberryland Games, Peppermint Fizz, a girl with a major chip on her shoulder, has rigged all of the contests and is ticking off the rest of the participants. Of course it's up to Strawberry Shortcake to fix everything and make the contests fair and square by playing by the rules. I guess the other girls weren't sure how to do this? Regardless, it's a cute, "do the right thing" type of moral storyline. Peppermint Fizz has released fizzy pop balloons to trip up her co-competitors, because as we all know balloons stood side-by-side with napalm as the major horrors of Vietnam guerrila warfare. She also has placed red-and-white peppermint candies throughout each contest to prove her devotion to the White Stripes, which understandably could be a bother. However, these candies are about the size of the girls themselves, so to bump into one probably is an indication of needing your eyes checked. But I digress. Your mission is to win the races so she can't. Hooray for spite!

At times it's hard to assess from an adult perspective whether a game will be fun for children. If I have trouble discerning how a game would be enjoyed by kids, I have two that I can always turn to for an accurate opinion. For the most part, though, I find most kids games that I try out fun or interesting in some redeemable way.

Playing through Strawberry Shortcake: Strawberryland Games was like pulling teeth. First of all, the graphics are sub-sub-par. Games targeted at children shouldn't be expected to blow people away with their graphics, but they should at least be fluid enough that they aren't shamed by CD-ROM games that kids might find in their cereal seven years ago. The cut scenes, normally the best graphical part of any game, were shakey and looked rushed. While the background shots are adequate, the characters themselves are shoddy and poorly addressed. They aren't in focus, they shake and move robotically; this is the rare title that looks much, much better in screenshots than in motion. I've played many a kids game and I can tell you these graphics from character models to motion are some of the worst I've ever seen.

With precision efficiency, StrawberryLand Games taxes the ears as dutifully as it does the eyes. It rings with the same annoying midi loop of about 10 notes and an occassional bird tweet throughout the entire game. There is no variation; just the same irritating tune repeated continuously. Worse than being stuck in a carnival nightmare, but slightly better than nails on a chalkboard. As I was playing through the contests, my 4 year-old daughter came up to me, hands covering her ears, and told me to "turn that noise off." Not exactly a thumbs-up from their key demographic.

All in all there are four games that Peppermint Fizz has rigged which you must complete. "Licorice Leap" involves your pet hopping downriver on licorice disks and you throwing more in his path so he doesn't drown. Nice concept. A little sadistic for my taste and my daughter was none too happy about it either.

Blueberry Muffin (my personal favorite!!) mans the Berry Boarding Race, which, exactly like it sounds, is a snowboard slalom down Sundae Mountain. Did I mention that while using your left hand to manuever down the mountain with the D-pad and your right hand to press the various A, B, X, and Y buttons to perform these moves, you're also expected to use your stylus to draw little shapes within dotted lines that pop up while performing these moves, presumably with your third hand?

Between games, there's Angel Cake's Dessert Booth, where you can use tickets won in the games to buy recipes for "boosters" that give you a slight edge in the contests. The more you pay, the better the boost. Just like the majors! So after juicing up, Strawberry heads out to conquer the contests with newfound ability.

The Balloon Race requires you to tap your stylus to make little pink balloons appear for you to climb on to get to the sky. This is one of the lamer levels and doesn't really present any sort of challenge to anyone who can tap. At all. The Berry Bounce game has you tapping on as many strawberries as you can in 30 seconds and Berry Tiles has you chasing poor Pupcake around a board to make all the tiles uniform as he walks over them. Someone needs to call the SPCA.

There is a multiplayer mode for snowboarding, but that's about it. Oh, I guess you can play the game in about six different languages. That's kind of neat, I suppose. You go through these levels that seem like they're for children in their simplicity but end up getting too complicated with the controls for their target audience. My daughter gave up on it after about 15 minutes and my son merely turned his nose up at the overly girlish game. It's a shame that companies think that to taget young girls they need put as little effort into the making the game as possible.

Flatline - More like Strawberry Shortchanged! Hoyo!

This game is rotten. The only positive thing I can think of about the game is that the instrution booklet is scented in the familiar strawberry scent that I grew up with. The graphics are shoddy, the sound is terrible, the control is a joke and the idea is just a little too twisted for my taste. I have to say, I'm more than a little disappointed to see yet another cherished childhood memory raped for the sake of profit.

Posted in: Reviews