CRG Reviews: Shrek: Fairy Tale Freakdown

''This next game was one I played during my childhood. So you may see me get nostalgic in some parts.''
 * Name: Shrek: Fairy Tale Freakdown
 * Publisher: TDK Mediactive
 * Developer: Prolific Publishing
 * Platform: Game Boy Color
 * Release: May 2001
 * Genre: Fighting
 * Players: 1
 * ESRB: E

Review
Back in my childhood, I was a huge animated movie nut, specifically movies from Disney and DreamWorks. Perhaps one of my personal favorites was (and still is) Shrek. In fact, I was so in love with the series that I, as a huge video game player back in the day, played a bunch of the Shrek games I could find. Perhaps one of my absolute favorites at the time has to be Shrek: Fairy Tale Freakdown.

Now that I'm a college student, looking back at games people say suck nowadays is nothing short of a pleasant experience for me, be it in the form of playing it again or watching YouTube vids of them. This is exactly what I did prior to making this review.

First off, the first thing that pops up on your little GBC screen is the logos of the publisher (TDK, which has developed a few other Shrek games) and developer (Prolific Publishing) accompanied by an admittedly catchy short music medley and a sparkly noise respectively. You then get to choose your language. As a kid, I was actually confused as to why they listed American and English as two separate languages. I later learned how certain words were spelled in British colonies, thus I understood better.

The character roster consists of six default characters and three unlockable characters (and the fact that you need passwords to unlock them [if you don't feel like fighting 'em again] every time you turn the game on is annoying as hell). I appreciate putting in minor characters from the film such as Monsieur Hood (a French Robin Hood) and Thelonious (whose only movie appearance was the first film, yet makes numerous appearances in other Shrek games). A nice roster, for sure, but a lot of their special moves are tricky to pull off.

Still speaking of the characters, certain characters' AI is either stupidly easy or insanely difficult. When it got to the latter, I almost felt tempted to turn off my Game Boy Advance SP and chuck the cartridge out the window, especially when it came to Gingy; I hated that fucker in the game! Such a projectile throwing, back-walking whore!

Since this is a Game Boy game, there isn't much to talk about regarding controls, mainly because A is for punching and B is for kicking. Sure there are some special moves, but I haven't gotten the hang of performing those moves on Game Boy's D-Pad. There are also power-ups, but I never figured out how to use them.

For a Game Boy Color game, the graphics aren't terrible, but they definitely pale in comparison to other Game Boy titles I've played. The sprites are decent, but the characters' actual faces are grainy as hell. Seriously, look at Shrek's face in the VS screen of the game and you'll know what I'm talking about.

My favorite part was the kickass music. It's still very catchy to this day, even if the rest of the game hasn't aged well. In fact, an awesome rendition of this game's OST exist on YouTube. Check out the playlist here

Key components

 * Graphics- 5.4
 * Gameplay- 6.2
 * Controls- 3.4
 * Sound- 7.2
 * Entertainment- 4.6
 * Replay Value- 5.5

Final score and final words
And the results are............................

5.4 (So-So)

Despite it's flaws, I still like the game, albeit not as much as I did originally. Thankfully, gaming technology has evolved since 2001 and some better Shrek games have been made (in my opinion at least)

-Joshua Garriga (a.k.a ComicReadingGamer)