Bratz - Artless Shlock

09/01/24

As a boy who grew up in the late 90s and 2000s, I was aware of Bratz. I knew about the dolls, the extended media, all that, but I was only aware - neither of my sisters were in to it, and I (even as someone who’s gotten more comfortable with enjoying ‘girly stuff’ as I get older) certainly not. I just want to say, my lack of knowledge of the Bratz franchise has nothing to do with what I’ve got to say about Bratz for the Game Boy Advance. This is without a doubt, bar *none*, the worst game I’ve played for this site, and genuinely perhaps one of the worst games I’ve ever played. It is a title lacking any positives whatsoever, being ugly, unreactive, pointlessly short and mind numbingly boring, created only to sell to dumb parents who, for some reason, are more interested in buying a game then a doll for their Bratz-obsessed kids.

Seriously, what do you expect me to say here? I’ve got nothing to wax lyrical about, nothing to link it to my past. This game is ARTLESS. Let’s dive right into this, and get it over with as quickly as possible.

Bratz is a rhythm game in the loosest sense of the word - not that it’s pretending to be a rhythm game, but that there just isn’t any rhythm to be had. Icons and buttons scroll upwards, and you press the buttons when they’re in a certain spot. Sure, there’s music to be heard in the background, but it’s so mind-numblingly bad that I struggle to remember. There’s around ten songs to finish, each of which are few minutes long and… that’s it, really. Sure, you can pick a Bratz to play and dress them up - in the most simplistic use of the word - but this is amongst the shortest games I’ve played on the GBA yet, clocking in at around thirty minutes - and that was after my stupid experience with the difficulty sliders. But to get to the point of things, there’s very little ‘rhythm’ to this rhythm game. You hit the scrolling icons when you’re meant to, akin to a D-Pad Dance Dance Revolution, but they don’t really match the music at all, so you can’t really click in time to the music so it’s just a… timing game? A rhythm game in name only, let’s say. Somehow, this game *does* have a multiplayer mode which threw me off - first of all, how many people are gonna meet who both own Bratz!? - but obviously I couldn’t play with anyone, and I couldn’t find any footage of it online. Maybe it’s a coolest way to interact with this awful game, but that is the sole silver lining to be found.

I had to look up a video - which took me a bit, because knowing my luck, there are MULTIPLE BRATZ GAMES!? - to remember the different songs present in the game, because they all just blend together into a weird, compressed, awfully techno-infused slimeball. As I said, there is no real correlation between the notes and the music, creating a rhythm game that is somehow both utterly boring and genuinely frustrating. Just gotta The music is the core baseline to any of these games - imagine if Rhythm Heaven had shite songs? Even for the minigames in Rhythm Heaven that genuinely kind of suck, the songs are good. Bratz has none of that. NONE OF IT! It’s just awful for your ears, and yawn-inducing for the rest of you.

Being the Alpha Gamer that I am (I promise never to say that again, don’t worry), I immediately put it on the hardest difficulty, but to my utter joy slash horror, it barely fucking works. Maybe I just suck, but I’m willing to put the blame on the game in this case. There’s still no real union between the music and the icons, so I was just trying to hit the buttons when the icons lined up, but it just didn’t seem to read my inputs and I failed the song in mere seconds. I tried this three times and this situation was replicated every single time. Maybe it was just me, but Bratz turned me into a vindictive asshole, so I don’t really care.

Perhaps to engage more with the fashionable side of the Bratz property (is there any other side, to be fair?) at certain points in each song you’ll have the chance to hit certain button combinations so your chosen Bratz will strike a pose and earn you some extra points, but there are some, let’s say, problems with this. First of all, points don’t matter remotely in this game; they have nothing to do with unlocking poses or anything, so really the only metric you should be caring about is how many ‘notes’ you managed to hit. The other, and more intrinsic, is that that the Bratz might as well not be moving when they ‘pose’. It’s genuinely some of the worst ‘animation’ I’ve ever seen in a video game - or in media in general. Considering how small the scale of this game is, an argument could be made that unlocking these poses could be considered one of the main incentives to play more then just the core songs, but I can’t imagine even a child wanting to engage with this long enough to unlock them all. Maybe I’m being pedantic, but frankly, I don’t really give a damn.

And of course, to underline this all, this game is genuinely hideous. The Bratz are somehow more horrifying than in person, and they move in such incredibly janky, basic ways that it almost makes me laugh. Even the menus and icons feel so utterly basic, with blurry backgrounds, and every level ends with the Bratz bouncing about in congratulation the exact same way. There are no real cutscenes, no context or justification for this rhythm game, which isn’t really a knock but I’m literally pulling whatever I can to make this review longer because there is just nothing to talk about. This is a poor, poor, abysmally poor game from start to finish, nothing more then a product thrown out to market to yong girls who really, really want to play a Bratz game in any shape or form, but I doubt even they could enjoy something this objectively - and I say objectively, as I challenge any of you to actually enjoy this shite - awful experience.

What else is there to say, really? From it’s fundamentals to the most supplemental, every mechanic, visual, sound and everything in between fails at a near basic level. Does it function? Mostly. But I don’t reward games for just functioning. Bratz is artless, unengaging, and perhaps the greatest epitome of GBA shovelware I’ve played yet. At least American Idol was funny. At least Crazy Frog Racer was entertaining. Bratz? It has nothing redeemable. Maybe there’s worse - but if there is, I can’t see how it could bring me less joy then Bratz for the Game Boy Advance.

Thanks you so much for reading my review of Bratz on the Game Boy Abyss! Man, it’s been a while since I’ve truly raged at a game, hasn’t it? Next game might not be good, either, but it can’t be worse than this, right? Right!? Either way, you can email me at mgeorge7003@hotmail.com or cckaiju@gmail.com if you have any requests or questions - and you now find me over at Twitch under the name GameBoyAbyss, where I’ll be streaming both GBA games and non-GBA games alike! Come in, it’s a learning experience and it’s been fun so far! Anyways, thanks for reading my review, and I’ll see you next time!