"So, What's the sitch?"
This old GBA game follows the adventures of red-headed teen heroine, Kim Possible, on a mission to save Ron Stoppable from the dastardly clutches of Dr. Drakken. Near as I can tell the game mashes a few of the first episodes into one game's "plot" for a story. That being said- Monkey Fist isn't even the real villain here, as he is a only a boss roughly half way into the game and then disappears. We get to travel the globe fighting bad guys such as Kim's arch rival Sheigo, the apish Monkey Fist, and the ever nefarious Dr. Drakken over the course of 8 short levels.
Kim is armed with acrobatic moves, a small arsenal of spy-type equipment (Lipstck Laser, Bomb, or Grapling Hook), and information fed to her through her Kimmunicator by the young genius Wade. The Wade information I learned by mistake while trying to pause and accidentally hitting the select button- resulting in a hint/info screen when he popped up in the bottom right corner on the Kimmunicator.
As a personal fan of side-scrolling action adventures, this game is only a decent play. It has pretty good visuals (considering it's on the GBA), great music, so-so audio effects, and is pretty fun to play in general. Although it does have a few flaws that make it really hard to say it was worth the time to play.
One specific issue, a massive problem in my book- one that I can only imagine caused many kids to stop playing- is the "Super Backflip Jump" maneuver. It is a move that allows Kim to jump large gaps or reach higher places. The problem is the preceding cartwheel necessary to do this jump. It is damn near impossible to place it correctly without falling into a hole in later levels. To do the jump you have to have a running cartwheel, then hit the jump button. As a major gamer myself, I was very irritated that the cartwheel itself is hard to judge in length, then the short arch range on the jump itself nearly ALWAYS lands too short causing unnecessary deaths. There is a stage late in the game that took me many, many attempts to get right. Of those attempts at least a quarter of them the jump should have worked, but for some reason as soon as the jump began Kim was sucked into the hole I was jumping over. An odd and extremely aggravating effect.
The next problem is the save system. Well the lack of save system, as there is no saving. Just a password system for each level consisting of a series of character's faces. Luckily nowadays there are plenty of websites that have them listed in case you forget or lose them.
There's certainly not much in the way of extras here. For in game collectibles there are pictures and movies. The small movies are unlocked by watching them during standard gameplay, while the pictures are unlocked by getting high scores and collecting all the blue crystals in each level.
Overall, this game could've been a great small game to play through for fans of the show, or merely GBA gamers looking for a small but entertaining adventure. It does have a weird difficulty spike in the last few levels where enemies start appearing en masse and the platforming gets really tough due to the Super Backflip Jump never working quite right. (As well as ONLY one move that can hurt Drakken during the last fight- took me a bit to figure out which one.)
It feels a bit lack-luster as GBA games go, and is only mediocre at best- so unless you're a die-hard Kim Possible fan- steer clear of this.
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