Masters of the Universe: He-Man: Power of Grayskull - I Do Not Have The Power!!!!!!

26/02/24

Correction, 28/2/24 - I was unaware that there was a He-Man cartoon released in 2002, though I still think it's accurate to say the series was still not quite in the public consciousness at the time. Just thought I'd shout that out!

He-Man: Masters of the Universe! To my generation, he exists in that strange gray area where he’s generally iconic (perhaps due to some certain, legendary memes) but I genuinely don’t know anyone who’s seen the actual classic television from the 80s. Seriously, my biggest connection to the franchise was, for a good couple of years I had a Skeletor shirt that I adored… though again, that might have to do with how funny Skeletor is to me, via legendary memes. Either way, He-Man never received his fair share of video games, just getting a smattering of arcade-style, side-scrollers and action-adventures and at a glance… Well, the bar of quality isn’t exactly there - but to make matters worse, today’s game might mark the floor of quality He-Man can provide. Whilst providing the campy, trademark charm, He-Man: Power of Grayskull rarely escapes a genuine feeling of awkward jankiness, with poor controls, atrocious combat and a consistent sense of just pure frustration that never truly ebbs away.

With my greatest feelings for He-Man: Masters of the Universe coming from a beloved meme and a shirt, the biggest reason I decided on Power of Grayskull as my next game was more amusement at the fact He-Man got a GBA game at all. It’s gotten a recent resurgence in popularity, but it’s 2024, not the early 2000s, and I’m pretty sure He-Man wasn’t quite at the forefront of the popular consciousness at this time. I only really plan out the bigger milestones - the x5 and xx numbers on the list - so a lot of these are games that, whilst not noteworthy, spark the curiosity enough for me to give it a try. And whilst I very much do not like this game, having a way to sate that curiosity is good enough for me.

Taking place over a dozen or so levels, He-Man: Power of Grayskull features our titular hero engaging in an isometric, action-adventure style of play. In the majority of stages, you’ll be roaming the relatively small, homogeneous-looking areas, hacking and slashing foes with your blade. Just your blade, no upgrades here. Hell, you’re pretty much working with three moves - a slash, a charge slash, and a flying slash that all… pretty much do the same thing, for all intents and purposes. Engaging, yes yes. Anywho, enemies will be accosting you at every turn, but you don’t actually have to slay them all, though you’ll probably be dealing with most of them, as certain foes will drop keys that’ll allow you to move further into the area, sometimes looping around to snag a key to unlock the bone door to the boss arena. There’ll be some variance to what you’ll be doing on a level-to-level basis, but this is the core bones of the game. The game also tracks how many pickups and how many enemies you killed in the stage, but beyond maybe some sort of scoring system I couldn’t really work out any real reason to engage with it. Overall, this game has the kind of setup that feels almost default for the GBA with an isometric viewpoint. It’s not bad that this game has this kind of format, but I’ve played more than sixty games just for The Game Boy Abyss, and I can’t help but get a little bored of this kind of game. I’ll try and be objective in this review, but man… the fact it feels so generic from the jump doesn’t do it any favours.

Much to this game’s detriment, platforming is at the forefront of your time with Power of Grayskull, and hoo boy… I think leaning away from pure hack-and-slash action at least… works, I guess!? Like with many, many isometric titles on the GBA, especially those that lean towards the platformer persuasion, this feels *rough* to say the least. Not only is it incredibly hard to correctly land your jumps to miniscule spire platforms, missing doesn’t just hurt - it flat out kills you. Yes, whilst dying does respawn you pretty much on the same spot, the fact that just mistiming an already awkward - at best - jump feels genuinely atrocious to deal with. At least when you’re getting brutalized by this game’s janky gameplay system, there’s an understanding of how you could do better, but with some of these jumps? Urgh.

But don’t be fooled - the combat isn’t much better. You’ll understand it pretty quickly, but I’m not sure if it’s an issue of hit detection, or just shoddy hitboxes caused by the isometric angle. Either way, I found myself *constantly* just missing hits that clearly went right through the average enemy, and this went double for the boss fights. This is the kind of game that, for the most part, isn’t too difficult, and if you play nice and slow, conserving your lives, or hacking like there’s no tomorrow, you’ll get through all the same. Either way, running out of lives will only kick you back to the start of the level, and with each level clocking in at around 5 to ten minutes a pop, you’re not really gonna lose much if you go utterly gung-ho, like I did.

One of the most frustrating elements of Power of Grayskull is that it actually has a pretty decent variety of objectives and gameplay modes, but it never really sticks to anything beyond the basic foundations which are already… uneven to start with. For example, the game begins with a twist on the basic action - enemies are constantly spawning from portals, trudging towards the gates of Castle Grayskull, forcing you to quickly dispatch foes whilst carving a path to destroy the portals. Insanely, this setup is never utilized again. Later, several levels are interspaced with auto-running, mounted sequences which are evocative of classic arcade shoot’em ups, and whilst basic, they’re satisfying and quick enough to be a decent addition. Finally, whilst a bunch of the bosses are your general ‘hit’em until they die’, a few take a more puzzely route, like with the Merman requiring you to drain all the water from the level to make him vulnerable. These aren’t… great, per say, but they do break up the more monotonous majority of the game. At least they’re not just ‘chop chop’, you’re dead (either of you, to be precise) experiences.

The rest of the bosses are simply *awful*, exacerbating everything wrong with the game’s general combat system. Bizarre hitboxes, brutal damage that’ll kill you in seconds, and with nothing unique to define them beyond working around invincibility frames. Simply put, bosses are a slog, through and through, forcing you to either throw away lives to chip them away as quickly or tease out a long, drawn-out victory, but *always* resulting in me just wanting to drop the game there and then. Boss fights in game that feature them are, personally, the most important element of these games, both a reward and challenge, and the fact they’re simply so abysmally unfun here, beyond a few standout few - which still really only grazes the heights of mediocrity - pretty much kills Grayskull for me there and then.

It’s depressing that this is the element I praise the most, but the fact the game, on boot up, gives you that fantastic, truly iconic ‘I have the power!’ voice clip from He-Man gave me a stupidly giddy grin every time. Which helps, because otherwise, the audio is so generic and forgettable it’s the only thing I *can* say about the game’s audio department. Beyond that, the game’s visual-audio design rarely ventures into the realm of the mediocre; level design is fine, I suppose, but so many of them just look the same with the good ‘ol craggy cave design that infects every inch of the game. Character models are undefined and blurry - to put it lightly - though the portraits are so odd looking it’s almost funny.

I’ve played over sixty games for The Game Boy Abyss, and I’ve got no plans to stop, but it’s games like He-Man that make me falter. Games that, whilst only being an hour or two long, are just so utterly… devoid of things to say about them. Generic to bad combat, awful bosses, frustrating platforming, but how do I say that about ten different games that, for all intents and purposes, feel the same? Maybe I need to level up my writing; maybe this is the great mountain I’ll have to scale if I wish to continue The Game Boy Abyss. I dunno, really… but honestly, at least He-Man: Power of Grayskull gave me something. Beyond some occasionally interesting game design and a hilarious intro, He-Man: Power of Grayskull is an unfun, frustrating at best and abysmal at worse title that has very little to offer for… well, anyone, honestly. Forgettable, even pointless - Power of Grayskull is shovelware standard for the GBA, and nothing more.

Thank you so much for reading my review of He-Man: Power of Grayskull! Again, not a great game, but at least it’s an interesting little novelty, at least personally. And speaking of novelties, next week, we’ll be taking a look at a genre I’ve barely touched at all these past few years! As always, you can find me on Twitter @Lemmy7003, email me at mgeorge7003@hotmail.com, and over at Twitch under GameBoyAbyss. Thanks again for reading, and I’ll see you in my next review!