Dexter's Laboratory: Deesaster Strikes! - Quantity Doesn't Trump Quality

28/10/25

When it comes to cartoons, Dexter’s Laboratory exists at that crucial limit of my childhood memory. I know I watched it, I remember watching it, but there are pretty much no specific memories still rolling around in my empty-ass brain. Funnily enough, I have been watching Space Ghost: Coast to Coast lately, and literally in the last episode I watched, they were showing clips from upcoming Cartoon Network shows. Seeing Dexter’s Lab popping up in that made me realise just how old the show really was, relatively speaking.

This is all to say that I don’t have a ton of nostalgia for Dexter’s Laboratory, and so I came upon Deesaster Strikes with almost no expectations at all. And, honestly, that was probably for the best. On a level of quality, Dexter’s Lab is a weird, frequently janky and awkward game. But it's also one that does enough to stand out from the general throng of licensed game platformers that I’m oh-so tired of having to slave through (me, the guy who subjects himself to this stuff weekly). It’s not a great game, frequently devolving into boring and frankly baffling repetition. but the concepts presented - and the fact it came out in the early months of the console - are good enough to recommend it as worth a look. Dexter’s Laboratory: Deesaster Strikes is a surprising game on the surface. Honestly, it’s best described as a blend of a puzzle-platformer with one of my favourite genres of all - the collectathon!

Deesaster Strikes follows Dexter’s constantly nightmarishly stupid sister DeeDee accidentally becoming entangled with a cloning machine. This results in over a hundred mini clones of her being unleashed upon the titular lab, ending in the kind of chaos a young man with an annoying sister can understand.

As someone with two sisters who were once VERY annoying as a child, I understand Dexter. I understand.

Impressions Are Everything

Deesaster Strikes take place throughout half a dozen laboratories - basically worlds - each of which consist of four subzones. Dexter will have to fight his way through his various laboratories and now-escaped, malfunctioning experiments, at the same time collecting and rescuing the various mini-DeeDees who have infested everything. Additionally, the clones have devastated much of Dexter’s high-tech equipment. So, you'll have to go through, find his various repair tools, and fix the various machinery through his lab. Basic licensed premise, pretty much could be an episode of the show.

Whilst the game is not as complex as something like Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge, if you’ve ever touched a collectathon, you’ll get the vibe Dexter’s Lab is going for pretty quickly. And, overall, as a game on these elements alone? Not bad.

Each sub-zone pretty much has the same pattern - navigation of the laboratory, which will feature some light platforming and basic combat in tandem. Additionally, you’ll be solving the laboratory’s various puzzles to progress through locked gates and broken spans, along with finding the DeeDee clones and repairing the machines throughout its depths. Despite the decent variety of goals - seemingly, at first - It later reveals an overall very rigid framework. But, considering a very decent chunk of the Game Boy Advance’s 2001 licensed offerings were side-scrolling, basic-ass platformers, Deesaster Strikes feels like an oasis in the desert.

Like with all collecta-thons, getting through an area, collecting all the DeeDees and unlocking the next area was satisfying enough to keep me happy for a few hours. The machines, though, aren’t as much of an alluring goal to deal with. There’s less of a tangible reward to repairing the machines as opposed to collecting the DeeDees - you need them to unlock the later and more challenging sub-labs. The machines? I guess you need them to truly finish the game, but the way you go about getting them - more on that later - doesn’t feel great.

Puzzling Sisters

But besides the collecting, puzzles make up the bulk of the game's moment-to-moment gameplay. I say that the game has puzzles, but there isn’t anything that complicated on display. Puzzles can range from platforming challenges, avoiding rhythmic hazards, to time-based switch-hitting. Though, there is occasionally something a little bit more interesting, like a sequence where you need to guide a missile past obstacles to open a switch, or hitting some switches in the pattern of a rainbow. They grow in complexity as you move further into the zones, but it’s nothing someone over the age of ten will have issues with. Usually. Look, the rainbow puzzle is very unresponsive, I only looked up the answer out of annoyance!

Importantly, finding a DeeDee clone in a level doesn’t ‘collect’ her. Dexter will need to grab her with his extendable claw and take her to an exit tube located somewhere within the level. A decently simple task, though taking damage will have set her free once more. It probably wasn’t intended this way, but even grabbing the DeeDees feels like a puzzle, since you need to use Dexter’s extendable claw to catch and hold them. But with how slowly the claw extends, and how fast and unpredictably the clones can move… I really feel Dexter’s frustration towards his sister, that’s all I’ll say. At least you can manipulate it as it slowly, slowly extends, but still, geez.

I just wish there was a bit more interesting variety of things Dexter could do with his moveset- he’s a boy genius, after all! As your only major weapon, the ray-gun is cool enough, but it ultimately just feels like ‘a normal raygun’, if you get what I mean. Pew pew. Shoot some gloop. It’s only scratching the surface of what you can do with Dexter’s televised repertoire. With the entire franchise being centered around Dexter being an inventive genius, the fact that the only inventions you actively utilize are the claw and the ray-gun feels a little bit disappointing.

I’m sure this game didn’t have the budget nor the vision to really push it to the next gear, but the basic premise of Dexter’s Lab allows pretty much anything to be in play. Plus, I didn’t even find the ray gun the best option for most combat scenarios. Dexter has a fantastic flying kick that took care of anything not invulnerable to it or lurking in a small tube. So, not needing the ray-gun makes the lack of inventions even more disappointing.

With fairly decent platforming, albeit basic as it is, Dexter’s Lab manages to stand aside its peers. There’ll be some basic jumps to, uh, jump, or some floating blocks to navigate. Otherwise, the platforming is pretty stock-standard in this isometric format. But it's the more foundational issues in regards to the damage you’ll take from the various threats throughout that raise greater issue. Everything in this game with a hitbox just feels… off. Flames that’ll hit you a full character length away, enemies who’ll bounce you off of ledges if you attack them in the wrong way, or gloops of slime that hit me so rapidly that my health bar was drained in an instant. The latter was a bit more frequent then I'd like. It might just be me, but it seemed that if I took enough damage in a rapid enough time, Dexter's health would deplete in way faster increments then at a 'normal' damage rate. The game doesn’t quite hit the realms of jankiness we see in other z-budget tier games, but I’d say little really functions 100% as it should.

Don't Dive In Shallow Water

The biggest issue I had with Dexter’s Lab is the fact that this is one of those games that does feel fresh for the first hour or so... Before quickly devolves into the near-epitome of repetition. After a sense of uniqueness early on, stages quickly begin to recycle a similar flow of puzzles. Thankfully, finding DeeDees isn’t an issue at all, due to the fairly useful map, so you’re better off just clearing all the puzzle obstacles in your current zone. After that, with all threats clear, it's just a matter of running back and forth between each rampaging Deedee and the escape tube. Which grows very, very old, very, very quickly as you spend more and more time in the game. At the very least, there is enough bespoke stuff, especially in the layout and designs of the levels, to keep things interesting enough. I really do think the first run of each level is fun enough - there’s just enough variety to keep it interesting, but the game inevitably does grow more boring and repetitive the more time you put into it.

To make matters worse, the secondary goal of the game - repairing the machines - just feels like an exercise in drawing things out. Whilst the machines are there from the very start, the tools you use to get them are doled out across each of the lab’s zones. Even the first zone requires tools from the, say, fifth zone. The game really should’ve - as shallow as it ultimately would’ve been - just about collecting the DeeDees, because having to go back to each world, fix all the machines assumedly AFTER collecting all of the mini DeeDees just adds time to this game it really doesn’t deserve. Honestly, I’d say the sprite work of the game can be a little spotty at the best of times, having a generally rough, uneven look to it all.

At the same time, I can’t help but praise how they’ve managed to capture the overall look and weird aesthetic from the cartoon series. Of the little memories I have of the show, I remember even as a kid finding it hilarious - and, for some reason, oddly unsettling - just how big Dexter’s lab actually was. Whilst the overall look of each level is the same - tiled floors, a lot of machinery - each area is filled with bespoke enemies and environmental details that fit each different laboratory, to a scale I didn’t expect from such an early licensed title. The music isn’t anything too amazing, but it fits the overall weird vibe of Dexter’s Lab, so I can’t criticize it too much. Shout out to my fiance, who heard me playing it and asked me if I was playing a Banjo-Kazooie game based off the sound. I don’t think it’s quite on that level, but that’s gotta be a compliment, right? To me, it has a hint of Fire Emblem to it. To each their own.

Dexter’s Laboratory: Deesaster Strikes is another one of those games which the general opinion of will swing heavily based on context. I think back in 2001, at the advent of the GBA, I don’t think the game would be hailed as fantastic. But, at the same time, it’s an absolutely stacked game for the time, at least in quantity if not quality-wise. I can imagine a kid getting kind of stuck on it at times, but if I had this when I was seven, I would’ve been obsessed with filling out its collectibles and conquering its janky-ass challenges. But how do I see it today? I’m glad I can appreciate where it succeeds, but I can’t ignore its bevy of foundational issues. Whilst the quantity of content helps ease the pain, this is a very, very repetitive game. Seeking out everything the game has to offer simply requires too much back tracking to recommend. Still, for a licensed title - especially one made in 2001 - Dexter’s Laboratory: Deesaster Strikes has it’s moments and it’s charms. But it is, ultimately, very mediocre. Just notable enough to earn a recommendation - just feel free to tap out whenever you feel your eyelids growing heavy.

Thanks for reading my review of Dexter’s Laboratory: Deesaster Strikes! Two more games. Two more games, and we’ll be at the big 100. Crazy. Check in next week for a review of what seems to be the GBA’s newest translated japanese title! As always, you can find me throughout the email under GameBoyAbyss, and email me at mgeorge7003@hotmail.com if you have any questions. Thanks again, and I’ll see you next time.