Game Boy Advance #1: Cabbage Patch Kids: The Patch Puppy Rescue

Developer: 1^st Playable Productions

Publisher: D3

Release Date: 2006

 

People give the Wii a hard time, but the Game Boy Advance was the true master of shovelware. Although it survived for almost a decade it was only a relevant console for about four years. It was supposed to happily coexist with the Nintendo DS, but very quickly it was overshadowed by the flashy new handheld. So, what was getting released in the waning years of 2005-2009? Well, just about anything with a license. The system’s library was full of games from long forgotten franchises hoping to cash in on cheap name recognition on a handheld mostly played at that point by children. Just about any dormant franchise could try their hand at new relevance by tossing out a half-hearted game, and for your amusement I am going to eventually write about them all, starting with the toy that every late 80s kid inexplicably had at the bottom of their toy chest, Cabbage Patch Kids.

 

Hey, it's a picture from my own TV! There aren't many screenshots from this game

Now Cabbage Patch Kids have never truly faded away. They are still in production which is no small feat for a forty-year-old toy line. However, they are nowhere close to the relevance they had in the mid 80s. For a few years they were the hottest toy around with just about every conceivable type of merchandise to their names. Even by the time I was a kid in the early 90s they were seen in just about every commercial break during cartoons. However, by 2006 their relevance was severely on the decline. There was nothing much new going on outside of dolls since their stop-motion TV specials of the late 90s. Still, somebody thought it was a good idea seven years later to have a GBA game based on the license. I’m not sure if it was a nostalgia cash grab or an attempt to connect with a new generation, but either way its mere existence is interesting. The game itself is less interesting than the story behind it.

 

It’s actually not a terrible game for one made for real little kids. It’s a classic left-to-right platformer with mini games peppered in between the levels. The story is that all the puppies have escaped, and you have to go rescue them. In a decent twist every level is full of tokens to collect, and there is a counter that tells you how many more there are to find. I enjoyed this because it gave the levels an amount of depth that they wouldn’t otherwise have. You get rewarded for exploring the entire world, and some of them require some brain power to figure out. Before I sing its praises too much, I will concede that it’s a bit dull for someone who is almost forty.

 

Cute!

It’s one of those kid games where nothing bad can happen to you. I know they are often made this way so that kids don’t get frustrated, but I have kids myself and they enjoy more of a challenge than what this game has to offer. The game has enemies in it, but all that happens if you get hit by one is a slight boink sound. I suppose if you really hate boinks than you may try to avoid them, but they don’t even slow you down. What’s the point of even putting them in if they aren’t going to serve any purpose? A life bar would be a big improvement for kids and adults. Some challenge would be good because the game is only about a half hour long. A greater difficulty would make the game last longer. Finding all the collectibles and playing mini games give it some depth, but it’s still a shallow experience. Even a very little kid has a longer attention span than what this game has to offer. It won’t even last a whole trip to the grocery store.

 

So, it’s another kid game that falls short. I hate to be a cynic and criticize another game for kids but making it in the first place was a fairly cynical move. It’s yet another low effort licensed title. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of them on Game Boy Advance, and I’m going to have to rank them all. I hope there are some good games on the console, but even the GBA Pokémon games were somewhat disappointing. It’s going to be a long trip. So, there were a couple things I liked about The Patch Puppy Rescue so it’s not going all the way to the bottom, but it’s not going to rank very high. Kids deserve better than half hour games with no challenge. It’s not a complete mess like Gordo 106 but not as well-made as Squidlit so I’m putting it at number 76 right between those two games. I promise that I won’t only play bad Game Boy Advance games this year, but they really intrigue me. Expect to see some even more goofy games in the future.