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miniallumgames · 7 years

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It’s Never Ogre...

Shrek 2: “It’s a real game”

Platform played on: Gamecube

Genre: A Joke

Allum’s Rating: 4/10 for loners, 7/10 for co-op

General Review:

So, this is mad late, even pushing into Mini’s week. This is also extremely long just to warn anyone. Mini’s gonna be pissed. Mini hasn’t seen any of this. If anyone cares enough, thank Mini because they recorded some of our conversations in the notes. Those will be spread out in the review. Oh sorry, I meant long ass shitpost.

It was originally a solo playthrough and as an avid Shrek fan, excitement permeated the air. Nothing was going to stop this hype train for this first review, except the game being clear pretty early on that it was for more than one person. So as the kind soul and partner it’s imperative that Mini was bestowed with [begged] the position as loyal squire in this arduous and rewarding journey of Shrek 2.

So Shrek 2 is basically the movie as a game. The game is unbearable at times and filled with puns. There’s a lot to this game especially in terms of gameplay. It changes its rules often, but in such a way it can be taken as refreshing instead of annoying. It’s far better than most movie/TV show video games and more effort is put into this game than necessary.

There is absolutely no reason for this game to have fully fledged out character models, boss fights, more than 5 world maps, voice acting, and a lot more. It exceeds all expectations that both Mini and I had. This game does have it flaws and an abnormally large difficulty spike. However, that will be evaluated in the main game summary.

The main set-up of the game is a beat-’em up with four characters available at any time. These characters can vary and each with their own unique abilities. The flow of the game is changed per chapter and per level. After a level, sometimes there is a mini-game, announced by the Magic Mirror, “It’s Hero Time” and it is just one player/character playing an entire game by themselves and the game will not continue until it’s completed. Some of these are rather easy and can be completed in one go while others will test your mettle and question your entire life as to why you are playing the same minigame from Shrek 2 for an hour and a half. Every chapter is something new and it can span upon the entire mainstream video game format list. It might not sound interesting now, but listen when I say Grand Theft Auto is involved.

The game’s menu is a storybook and when something is clicked, sometimes there will be a random voice line from either Shrek or Donkey. Imagine going to options and suddenly the thundering voice of Shrek shouting, “OGRE POWER!!!”. Anyway it’s a good presentation of the menu and far better than the usual title screen = menu deal.

[Allum: So menu’s pretty nice *starts exploring and clicking on stuff*

Mini: It’s Shrek, I’m surprised there’s no toilet humor-

Shrek (out of nowhere): OGRE POWER!!!

Mini: Excuse me?]

In the beginning the game starts with our lovely, playable main cast of Shrek, Fiona, Donkey… and the most important one of them all: Gingerbread Man, why is he here so early in the game? He doesn’t make an appearance in the movie until the third act, but now he is available in the first chapter of the game. It’s alright because his purpose of being in the party is to hit random targets placed all over the swamp and distract surprisingly timely alligators with cookies. As for the other characters, Shrek can lift various objects and either throw them or place them in their designated spots. Fiona can apparently slow down time with the use of an hourglass, while Donkey can burrow kick objects into submission.

The story for Chapter 1 is that Fiona and Shrek got an invitation from Fiona’s parents to meet the lucky man who Fiona married. Shrek isn’t going to go without supplying on some eyeballs for the road and the game becomes a beat-’em up/collectable. This is the main format of the game, but it changes itself every so often. Playing the game for the first few moments was pretty fun until characters started getting stuck and locking the camera in an awkward position. The AI is the same as the majority of escort mission AIs, dumb as bricks and likely to die.

Mini played as Donkey while Gingerbread man was mine and for some reason his candy cane is a homing jump attack. The first objective to continue with the game is to collect eyeballs for unsuspecting snails in the swamp. Simple and nothing really remotely interesting, until five minutes later… Robin Hood and his French out-of-the-closet men show up to fight.

[Mini: Is it just a collectathon?

Allum: I fucking hope not. I ain’t a completionist.

*moving to next part and then in game cutscene*

Robin Hood: OH MERRY MEN!

Allum (in stunned disbelief): Mini, please explain to me why Robin Hood is French?

Mini: He isn’t French? Maybe he turned French when Fiona kicked his tights so high up his ass.]

They were surprisingly hard. There were far too many of them and Shrek and Fiona died in the process. Afterwards, it was time for fairy collecting using time-slowing hour glasses and at this point, why didn’t they just leave after getting the eyeballs? Shrek just needed his disgusting trail mix for the onion carriage.

Anyway despite feeling as though much accomplishment has been made, Shrek 2 showed itself as Dark Souls with its map design. It circled back into Shrek’s home and it turned out that Lil’ Red took over the home to make chicken soup. The place was infested with chickens and the goal was to hit the chickens into the pot. Yes, when a chicken is hit, sometimes the chicken will fly halfway throughout the map to its boiling death.

Then our merry band of heroes was then somehow convinced to journey with Lil’ Red to her grandmother’s house. At this point, our merry band of heroes should be almost stupidly late to meet the King and Queen of the kingdom and this is probably why the King hated Shrek so much because he was three days late due to collecting eyeballs, capturing fairies, and hitting chickens.

After arriving to Grandma’s house, the chapter was still not over. It was mini-game ti- sorry, “It’s Hero Time” and this time it’s Fiona’s turn in the spotlight and this one throughout the entire game is the easiest one in the whole game, but no one told us. The goal of this one is to make birds explode with Fiona’s singing. It is basically DDR and with every button Fiona sings until the final button mash where she belted so high that the birds that were trying to keep up explode.

Finally, it was the end… of chapter 1.

[Mini: That was pretty fun. I guess. (referring to Fiona’s mini-game)

Allum: Yeah, the game has a pretty good feel to it. Music is good too.

*After intro to Chapter 2*

Mini: FUcK no. Are you serious?]

As to why Mini freaked a little, Gingerbread Man ditched us for a date and Lil’ Red joined in, but the main reason was that Chapter 2 is a giant escort mission. At this point, it should almost be obvious that Mini was my saving grace in this arduous journey and this was only Chapter 2 out of 11 and it only gets worse.

Yes, the second chapter is escorting the 3 blind mice throughout a horrible forest/graveyard. A witch wants them for one of her spells and turned the horses back into mice and so the gang has to help out. The mice are disturbingly fast and the cheese does almost nothing to distract them from the various death traps waiting for them.

The best way to win was to rush as fast as possible past the mice and the two party members whose abilities are vital to this stage were Donkey and Lil’ Red. Donkey uses his burrow blast to kick old trees and gravestones to use as paths. While Lil’Red can rings bells that open gates with her spin jump and throw apples at mouse traps and rats.

Apple throwing is the most infuriating thing since the apple’s direction is thrown by which direction Lil’ Red happens to be standing and the mouse trap doesn’t go off if the apple doesn’t hit directly on it instead slightly over it. In any case, that was the most troublesome part of the escort mission.

The game also introduces a drunk knight as another enemy and initial thoughts were that he was going to be an easy enemy just more health. Instead he can’t be stunned and can keep using his sword spin move until every character is rolling in their grave wondering how an idiot took them down. The answer to that is because each hit from the knight takes half of the health bar away and the game doesn’t have that wonderful boon of invincibility frames.

Finally in the end of the escort mission, the real villain shows itself, “It’s Hero Time”. It’s the start of something evil. This time it’s Dragon and Donkey’s turn to shine in Hell. Once the mice are escorted safely, Fiona gets into the onion carriage and right before Shrek can get on, the witch casts a spell on the carriage and sends it down a path where it will fall off a cliff. This Hero Time is just a dodger, but there’s a weird delay in the inputs and it might just take a couple of times until it’s finally over and Fiona is saved.

Now Chapter 3 is something real special.

[*plays Chapter 3*

Allum: Wow

Mini: It’s just a shitty version of GTA.

Allum: What are you talking about it’s magic.]

Yes, Chapter 3 of Shrek 2 is a really shitty version of GTA and received my complete adoration and Mini’s complete hatred. Shrek and the gang made it to Far Far Away and are suddenly given the positions of deputies to help out the old father-in-law. Shrek’s just there to suck up while the others are just… there. This part of the game is the buggiest as every time the camera tilted a certain way the screen would turn a pale blue and the only thing besides the screen looking like someone accidentally hit fill on MS Paint are the shadows of the characters as grey circles.

Anyway, the only thing that’s GTA about it is there’s a star system only up to 3 stars. The easiest way to get beaten up and to get those beautiful 3 stars is just to hit a knight. Sure it might be fun to hit random people with apples or kick them halfway through the block with a burrow kick, but isn’t having Shrek carry a knight the good old Shrek way.

The goal is to help out the kingdom with thieves, escorting princesses, and helping Humpty Dumpty in several mini-games. But it’s more than any one of us expected. This section is very easy to complete because it can just end once talking to the King, but no one told us that. We both assumed that every mini-game had to be finished and some mini-games took more than two tries, but they were all doable.

Every single mini-game was played to agonizing completion. One mini-game was to escort Cinderella while she goes shopping and beat up the 40-50 armed men ready to steal from her. There was one that included beating up the Pied Piper and his children stealing rats. Shrek has his “Hero Time” just throwing outlaws into a police wagon. Another one tests platforming skills to collect Humpty Dumpty’s body. Last ones include chickens and then following a troll stealing jewels to collect them. He instakills anyone in one hit and an ‘I hate you’ note written in orc’s blood. Blah, they’re done.

On to Chapter 4, no more dilly dallying. No more with Keeping up with the Cinderellas.

Chapter 4 is a godsend. Sort of depending on how well you can press buttons. There’s no map, it’s just a rhythm boss fight with Puss-in-Boots. Anyway the King hires Puss-in-boots to kill Shrek and Fiona is left behind in the castle and left out with Gingerbread Man. This is the first time that it follows the movie in the sense that Puss-in-boots just pops out of nowhere to fight. If you make one mistake, that character is dead and you move on to control the next character. It’s just dodge and parry, the button game with the cat in the pretentious hat.

Chapter 5: Back to the basics

This section is back to the simple get to the goal and beat things up along the way. This time Shrek and the gang went to Fairy Godmother’s house to get a happily ever after for him. When they arrive, Shrek doesn’t have an appointment and can’t get in, but Lil’ Red apparently had one and just leaves the group without a care in the world. Puss-in-Boots replaces her and not surprisingly very stealthy and agile. His abilities include walking on conveniently placed ropes to the switch and looking like a deranged orange when he jump.

[Gingerbread Man: “Things would be easier if I was brown”.

Mini: What kind was joke was that? A race one? A cookie joke? Is it even a joke? What was that?]

So they are headed to Jack and Jill’s farm to get a package so they can ‘deliver’ it to Fairy Godmother’s house. There is no reason to pad the game for this long and if they followed the movie’s route, it would have been long enough, but credit is given to inserting new places in the Shrek Universe. The only enemies are pumpkins infused with Fairy Godmother’s magic or drugs. Let’s be real she is the mafia. The rest of the map is just filled with easy puzzles using mostly Puss-in-Boots to solve them. This section is relatively easy and short, but that is only because it is just practice until Chapter 5 reveals its true self.

The real level is another “Hero Time” and this time it’s Puss-in-Boots turn. Platforming rears its disgusting face in the worst way possible. In platforming, it’s acceptable to have 5 to 6 platforms until a checkpoint, but there is no checkpoint in this whole thing. It consists of platforms, ropes, and piranhas. It’s all about timing on the ropes and which way is fastest to the goal because there is more than one path. It’s honestly not that hard, but that’s only because Mini did it.

[Mini: I’m done *walks out*

Allum: Where are you going?

Mini: To get coffee, so I can try to work out why you are trying to test my love.]

Chapter 6 and this time Mini is gone. Thank goodness this time, I didn’t need help.

It’s a pretty small map once again, but it follows the same format as Far Far Away. It is chock full of mini-games and this time they are not optional. These are far easier than the ones in Far Far away and are actually enjoyable. The music and the colors make it extremely fun and whimsical. There are cows, bees, and giant carrots in the map really adding to the farm atmosphere.

The story as to why Shrek and the others have to help out in the farm is because the Three Little Pigs are lazy and they won’t give them the package until Shrek and the others finish their own for them. This is probably one of the best maps in the game and most of the mini-games are rather fun. There are so many puns in this map that Mini would have left the city if they heard all of them. Every time the mini game begins or is complete, the pig who assigned it makes a pun. These puns are masterpieces and although the writing in this game is awkward most of time, this time it is A+.

A favorite would have to be the start of the chicken collecting mini-game.

[Pig: Now don’t go killing ze chickens, I don’t want Poultry-geist running around”

Allum: *snorts*]

This game has the party go around hitting chickens and then the chickens fly up into the air and then disappear into thin air, hopefully to their coop if not then into Lil’ Red’s pot of death. A small map with some enemies and roaming chickens. Simple and easy, nothing horrible about it. There is also an egg collecting game that is impossible to fail and is reminiscent of a Mario Party game. The needle in the haystack one is just a clusterfuck based on luck. There are either 16-25 haystacks and the needle is in one of them. The more haystacks are hit, the more rats are released. At one point there were so many rats, the poor slave called Gamecube started to make the worst crying sounds and the reaper named “Lag” showed itself.

As always there’s “Hero Time” and it’s Gingerbread Man’s turn. It has nothing to do with him being a cookie or any of his skills or acquaintances. This poor living cookie has to climb up a ridiculously large hill to get a pail of water while avoiding being crushed by giant tomatoes that want him decomposing for their future children. There is nothing sophisticated about it. It is just a simple ‘get to the goal’, but it is a waste of Gingerbread Man.

Finally, the Pigs give the gang the box to deliver to Fairy Godmother’s house. And guess who’s back! Mini came back to suffer with me. Oh yeah so is Lil’ Red.

Gingerbread Man left us probably because he needed a milk bath after the tomato incident and so Chapter 7 appears. Chapter 7 is when the game amps up the difficulty. It starts off easy in the first puzzle, which is just having Shrek move crystal orbs around until there are no more lasers in the way. If any of the characters hit the laser, a bunch of heavily armed men will show up. The best part of this section is that Smokey the Bear showed up sleeping on one of Fairy Godmother’s couches.

Now here’s where the game starts to flip its middle finger. “It’s Hero Time” with Lil’ Red and the Fairy Godmother. Now normally it only takes a couple of times to finish these mini-games, but NOT a full hour of my life. So this poor girl has to run on a 3 conveyer belts with giant spikes in between each one as a short magic-buffed grandma tries to sucker punch her into the afterlife with homing magic missiles. And all she has to defend herself are apples.

Eventually, Lil’ Red won and the chapter continues with our heroes finally making it to the potion room. It’s pretty much a team effort to get it and it’s fun.

Then it’s a mob fight. There are just so many. We lost a few times and the fight started from the beginning.

We wanted to just go to sleep, but there were only four more chapters left. We came too far.

There were at least more than 50 guys there and the feeling of death was washing over us. Still wasn’t over, Ryan Seacrest shows up as a boss fight. He hit pretty hard for a pretty boy, but he was no match for the patented, old ‘hit and run’. We beat him up and then his mommy comes to chase us out of their home. There was an actual chase scene, but far more manageable than her boss fight. But we did it, we got the potion.

[Allum: FINALLY!!!!

Mini: Don’t wake the neighbors.

Allum: They’re having sex again. Don’t even try. *sassy pose*]

8th Chapter is fine except for the “It’s Hero Time” segment. At this point in the game, Shrek and Donkey have transformed into a handsome guy and a white stallion. They’ve been locked up because Fairy Godmother sees him as too handsome. Now it’s finally time for new characters to have their time to shine.

This game feels new again because half of the party has been replaced. It’s jailbreak time with fairy tale characters. Gingerbread Man and Lil’ Red are back in action and finally on the team at the same time. They all have the same abilities as always. But there are two new characters, the Big Bad Wolf and Fairy. Starting with the Big Bad Wolf, he deals a lot of damage and his special is his blowing ability which helps with a lot of the puzzles. His animations and lines are actually rather nice and he plays similarly to Shrek as the tank except that he can stay in the air longer due to his dress.

Now onto the Queen herself, Fairy, she is amazing. Yes, her name is Fairy and no, she is not Tinkerbell. It says so on her character profile. Whatever, she’s so badass. She is the leader and drill sergeant of the team and she takes no BS. Her abilities include flying, granting others the ability to fly temporarily, and becoming a machine gun. Her normal attacks fire extremely fast and her movement speed is faster than anyone else. Her only bane is that because she is floating the entire time, she can’t press buttons or lift objects, but that’s what the others are for. She doesn’t need to do anything besides kill and float.

The actual level is a good old regular prison break mission. The goal is to break out 2 out of the 3 Little Pigs and Shrek and Donkey. There’s no big tricks or super aggravating things in this part. It boils down to bring something to somewhere to open a door, press a switch, or blow a giant boulder up/down a slope with Big Bad Wolf. There is actually some challenge with the game because if the characters are detected a lot of enemies will come to attack them and those enemies hit like a carriage. Overall, this is probably one of the best parts of the game along with Far Far Away and Jack and Jill’s Farm just because all the characters are really fun to play with.

“It’s Hero Time” is actually not rage inducing. It is far better than the previous one with Apple Thrower vs Magic Missile Caster. This time it’s the Big Bad Wolf’s turn and it’s technically the same as Puss-in-Boots’. It’s a simple get to the goal game except there is some platforming and instead of piranhas with predictable attack patterns, there are rolling bombs. Poor Wolfie has to do this to get the key to free Shrek and Donkey. We actually got it on our first try so that’s why this one isn’t so scathing as the others.

Time for Chapter 9 and now party switch-a-roo time!

[*Chapter 9 starts and playable characters show up*

Mini: You RUiNeD It! *Points at the screen* MY QUEEN.

Allum: More like your machine gun.

Mini: My Queen has fallen… *drops to her knees*]

Good-bye interesting cast of characters and interesting party chemistry. Welcome back Shrek, Donkey, and Puss-in-Boots. Interesting thing now is that Shrek and Donkey now count as one character because the whole time Human!Shrek is riding on top of Horse!Donkey. They are now the main damage dealers in the team and are extremely fast. Shrek now wields a giant lance and can throw an unlimited amount of damaging magic potions at enemies. They can break large objects and crystals. The two people from Fairy Tale Heist Team that stayed are the Gingerbread Man and the Big Bad Wolf.

However this stage is once again pretty good and rather easy. It’s just simply running through the map and slaying down enemies. The level is designed like a temple and looks like it was copy-and-pasted straight from a Lara Croft or Uncharted game. It’s a rather pretty level as it There is some pretty good background music too. It’s rather mystical sounding and pleasant to listen to.

There’s a pretty varied bunch of enemies here instead of just normal men. There are spiders, giant spiders, frogmen, and golems. The only real threats are the spiders and stone golems. The spiders have shown up before, but now there are more of them and if three of them gang up on any character, it’s basically instant death as there is no invincibility frames to allow the character to escape. The stone golems and the golden golem are probably the biggest threat because they have the largest HP bar and hit extremely hard, but can be easily taken down with Shrek’s magic potions.

“It’s Hero Time” and it’s almost the last one and it is genuinely a horrible experience. It is tiring and requires absolute focus, but it’s fucking hilarious. So Fairy Godmother surprises the gang and kidnaps Snow White in her glass casket. Then Shrek and Donkey chases after Fairy Godmother and Snow White as they’re racing down the in a mine cart. It would have been funnier if the controller didn’t go flying. Fairy Godmother takes at least 7 times to take her down and it’s a long mini-game for that. Shrek and Donkey are only allowed 1 hit and then they die. Never in my years have there ever been such pure, unadulterated hatred for a game and twisters in Harvest Moon exist.

After what felt like a lifetime, it’s over and the gang is back in Far Far Away. Chapter 10 and guess what, the gang are now firefighters and their mission comes from Smokey the Bear who turns out to also be Papa Bear. This was honestly the best part of this chapter. But also why isn’t Smokey helping out and if he was there to prevent fires, why are there several fires all over Far Far Away. No more bugging out into a pale blue death screen this time, thankfully.

It’s an easy mission of just putting out fires by using Big Bad Wolf or a water cannon and breaking down doors to let people escape. There wasn’t anything hard about it and is rather pointless. Smokey had no reason to stop these random group of people and tell them to put out all the fires and save all the people from the doors that won’t open from the inside. It contributed nothing and it was just to ease the player’s tension from the previous “It’s Hero Time” and to get them prepared for the next part of the level.

[Allum: It’s a trap. That giant gingerbread monster is going to appear and it’s going to be an escort mission.

Mini: That part’s obvious. Why are you freaking out?

Allum: I don’t know. One of us has still to react to this game.]

Surprise, it’s an escort mission. It’s even more aggravating this time. This time the gang is escorting Mongo, that giant Gingerbread Man, through the entire town. He’s such a huge target it’s not even funny. So the gang has to destroy the knights using water cannons/catapults that shoot disturbingly fast while running through roofs. Mongo is so easily killed and we actually had to turn up the brightness on the TV because we couldn’t see what we had to use to defeat the knights and if we actually got them.

After the roof section, it’s the same thing, but on the Far Far Away version of Beverly Hills. It is easier than the roof section as long as Shrek and Donkey are used correctly because now a bunch of enemies will come out and only Shrek and Donkey can knock them out easily. Mongo will be on one side of the street while Shrek and the others will be on the other. The Gingerbread Man can now direct Mongo to destroy obstacles on Mongo’s side of the road with his throwing cookies. It’s pretty creative and a test in multitasking and timing. Nothing feels better than throwing a cookie and more than thousands of dollars of property damage is done.

And finally the last “It’s Hero Time”, and who else would the last hero be in Shrek 2 than Mongo, the best character in the movie. This time it’s rather easy compared to the other ones because it is timed to be less than a minute and it is just a still turret section. The goal is to protect Mongo and it was the most exhilarating part of the game because the game was almost over. The banquet was almost upon us and we were not going to waste any more time.

So… Chapter 11… That lil’ old chapter. The banquet did not happen and we turned off the Gamecube and got coffee. Who cares about a sense of accomplishment? Neither one of us was willing to put anymore time on Shrek 2 for the Gamecube.

Let’s get this straight, WE DID NOT FINISH THE GAME. Because this section is such bullshit. It is a multi stage boss fight against Fairy Godmother. So Shrek and Donkey turned back to normal and Fiona is back in the party. GIngerbread Man and the Big Bad Wolf are nowhere to be seen. A part of me wished that we could finish it, but it’s just the worst thing ever. Fairy Godmother and Ryan Seacrest doesn’t fight fair. We got up to third stage and that’s it for the review.

So the first part of the boss fight is with the drunk knight that can take down half of a character’s health in one hit. But now there is 10 of them. And they surround the party in a circle. It took a while before we got the trick was just to wait in the middle because the knights can’t actually spin move all the way into the middle to hurt the party. They have an indicator to show when the knights will stop their spin moves and it’s that their armor will fall to their ankles. This took six times until we figured that out.

The next stage of the fight is with a troll that switches between running up to a character to hit them and throwing bombs. This troll showed up in previous chapters and is just as easy as the previous times. If anything this part is just to let the party heal up as there are health potions on platforms that only Puss-in-Boots can get to. This troll hits pretty hard, but goes down in 3 hits from a kicked back bomb.

The last stage that we got to is a pseudo fight. Fairy Godmother will come down to fight, but the fight stops after a little bit of her health is missing. The real part of the stage is when Ryan Seacrest shows up and makes a lame ass joke about Trolls and unleashes not 1, not 2, but 3 trolls onto the battlefield. We were probably just unlucky because 1 troll was throwing bombs while the other 2 came rushing at the party and easily took them all out every time. And that’s the end of our Shrek 2 journey.

In conclusion, play this game if you love Shrek or want to test the strength of your relationship. It’s a fun ride with friends, but it’s not the best game to play alone. Someone has to be there to share the rage and frustration. Most of the levels are pretty varied and no one level is the same. The music is rather whimsical and it’s clear that a good amount of effort was put into it. The cutscenes get worse the more you progress through the game and sometimes the AI will glitch out. Because we couldn’t finish the game, we found the credits in the menu and decided to watch it. It is fabulous and is better than any of the game’s cutscenes. Every name in the credits is accompanied by a renaissance caricature of the person and the background for the portrait is never the same. So the game is the same as the credits and the credits are the same as this review, far too much effort has been put into it.

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