He-Man: Power of Grayskull

"By the power of liscensing muscle!"

Masters of the Universe is a highly successful animated series from the 1980’s which pits a hero and his friends against a villain and his friends. This highly original and thought provoking premise lends itself perfectly to a simple, children’s action title. Recently Masters of the Universe received a facelift and an all new show is currently broadcast on cable television. As one would expect, video game publishers salivate heavily when confronted with licensing opportunities. Thus, Masters of the Universe He-Man The Power of Grayskull graces our GBA screens.
THQ steps up to the plate and delivers a simplistic action title viewed from an isometric perspective. He-Man can Swing his sword, jump, block, and run. These are all concepts that we have seen millions of times before but unoriginality is not where this games falters. The gameplay revolves around collecting power ups, destroying enemies, and completing mission objectives that have you running around simple environments. Battles are a chore due to the fact that just about every single enemy is a match for He-Man. The game is actually quite easy to complete with a little maneuvering, but the license is not being put to good use when our mighty hero He-Man has just as much trouble battling Skeletor as he does a small spider. Three rather simple shooter shooter stages were included to add variety to the proceedings. Be glad that they were. All of the gameplay would be uninspired but acceptable if not for the games most glaring flaw. But we’ll get to that later.
The story is nearly nonexistent. Each stage includes a few lines of dialogue which helps to either point you in the right direction, or provide a false sense of being in Eternia by pretending that your actions are actually affecting a plot. For instance, completing one stage results in your ally being rescued from captivity. This little prisoner scenario is repeated several times throughout the adventure and could just as easily been left out completely without affecting the games quality. Fans of the show will be unimpressed by the stilted dialogue and lack of emotion the characters display. All of the story bits would be uninspired but acceptable if not for the games most glaring flaw. Drum roll please.
The graphics, they are atrocious in every possible way. The animation is choppy. The power ups are indistinguishable from each other. All of the enemies look as if they were pulled from some other arbitrary game. The colors are all muddy. The environments don’t look like anything but swirls of brown, yellow, red, and.....brown. He-Man himself and all off the boss enemies are incredibly pixilated and the games animators had no interest in making things look lively. He-Man carries a shield but uses his swo
to block throughout the entire adventure. That alone is the ultimate proof that the animators are either talentless, stupid, or were given insufficient time to polish ANYTHING. The visuals reek of low production values from top to bottom. The graphics even commit the cardinal sin of negatively affecting the game play. The visual presentation of characters and objects does not always match the collision detection. That is one of the worst things a video game can do.
The developers clearly realized the heavy flaws this game has, and used what little time they had to at least throw in quick fixes. There are so many health ups and extra life opportunities that the game ends up being easy despite the frustrating play. It can be completed within two hours, but due to the lousy game design, only INSANE He-Man fans and UNEMPLOYED action gamers will ever play it again.
Licensed action titles on Game Boy are more common than used copies of John Madden games. As a result, competition, and thus, alternatives, are abundant. Fans of the show MAY enjoy having this game in their library, but everyone else should steer clear. It’s a decent rental that won’t ruin your weekend, but nothing more.
D+
4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/01/04