Balloon Kid

"Kinda cute game. Gotta get it."

My little brothers, we'll call Christian(9 years old) and Tyler(7, gonna be 8 soon) own this game. But out of boredom, I played this game while they were sleeping, and made it to the final level. Soon, I decided, ''Hey, this game is pretty good!'' Now don't go saying ''Why the hell is a 14 year old playing a kid-ish looking game?!'' Play it before you judge it.

Story: 6/10
Ok, so it's not much, but I find it rather humorous. A girl named Alice was standing outside, watching helplessly as her little brother floats away, stuck in a bundle of balloons. Desperate to save him, Alice got two balloons, tied them on her, and went off to go rescue the little rascal.

Graphics: 7/10
Graphics aren't bad for a Gameboy game. The cool part about it is that the main character(Alice) and her little bro look like anime characters. However, the enemies look a little more non-anime. Other than that, the graphics are ok.

Music: 6/10
It's a Gameboy game, so the music is supposed to sound crappy. But Balloon Kid's soundtrack is decent. Some of the songs aren't so annoying, like the 1st level music. The 2nd level music is somewhat creepy at times, and the rest are just fine.

Sound: 5/10
Average bleeps and blops. Not too bad, but could be a little better.

Control: 8/10
Nice. The Left & Right buttons move Alice, repeatedly tapping the A button will make Alice fly, push the B button to let go of the Balloons, and hold Down, then press the B button repeatedly to blow up balloons to replace the ones that you lost.

Gameplay: 8/10
Pretty good. You go through 8 levels, avoiding enemies and obstacles. Some enemies you can kill, some you can't. Every 2 levels, you fight a boss, which you can beat usually by jumping on it's head. If you come in contact with an enemy/object, you will get bounced back a ways, or if you hit an enemy/object that's on fire/surrounded by electricity, you lose a life and have to start the level over again(or at the halfway point, if you reached it). If an enemy hits your balloons, you lose one, and start flying slower. Get hit again, and you lose another. Then you can't fly until you blow up more balloons. But that's not the only thing, in the main menu, there's an option called ''Trip'' there, you have to avoid all the Sparks(the glowing things that kill you if you touch them) and survive as long as you can. There's no exit in this mode, you just fly until you land. Well, that's about it.

Replay: 5/10
If you beat the game(which I haven't), you might not wanna play it again for a while. But the Trip mode adds to it.

Buy or Rent: BUY

Maybe you might wanna rent it, but maybe you wanna buy it. I say buy it. I mean, Gameboy games these days should only cost about $2-5. So, yeah.

In closing, Balloon Kid is a pretty good game. Might be hard to find, since it's old. Thank you for reading.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/22/04