Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"How do you make a good Buffy game without Spike? Apparently, you don't."

I wasn't aware there was a Buffy game for the GBC. I mean, I pay attention to Buffy stuff. I'm a great big Buffy geek. Ask anyone who's had to listen to me talk for five minutes. I can't shut up about Buffy. Thanks to this rabid fanboyness, I assumed I would have known if there were an official Buffy GBC game. So when I found a ROM of this game, at first I thought it was some sort of fan-made thing.

After playing it, I wish it were. That would at least give the game an excuse for its craptitude.

Graphics: 5/10
There's only so much you can do with graphics on a pre-Advance Game Boy, but Buffy does an okay job. The characters in the cut-scenes look sorta like their TV counterparts. But as for the in-game stuff, it's about the same level of quality as early NES. In-game characters are non-descript human-shaped blobs, although the vampires in each level look different. They all look like dirty stereotypes (the ''refined'' British vamps, the ''savage'' African vamps, ect.), but with the graphical limitations of the Game Boy Color, it can be understood.

Sound: 1/10
One song throughout the entire game. One bad song. It's a generic bit of electronic noise that could have been taken from just about any game made anytime during the Golden Age of Atari 2600. Ditto for the sound effects.

Gameplay: 3/10
The gameplay is just bad. It's boring and redundant. You walk. You jump. You kill vampires. You walk some more. There's no variety to it. Well, scratch that. There is some variety. Sometimes, after a while of walking left to right, they'll switch it up on you by making you walk RIGHT TO LEFT! Yes, you heard me right! Right to left! That's cutting-edge gameplay...for 1986. As for weapons, you only have one - a wooden stake. No holy water, no crosses, no sharp objects, and none of those snazzy Sunlight Grenades that Blade guy has. Just a stake. Of course, that's all you really need, as the only enemies is the game are vampires, and the only real differences between them are graphical. Some are tougher than others, but they're all easily beaten by mashing a few buttons until they're down on the ground, at which point you jab a stake in them. All this gets the gameplay 2 points out of 10. So why is the score 3 out of 10? Well, it gets a bonus point for accidentally taking the advice Giles gives early in the series - ''slaying vampires should simply be plunge and move on, plunge and move on.'' That's what this game is all about. Plunge and move on. Plunge and move on.

Control: 5/10
I'll cut the game a little slack in the Control Department. There's not much that can be done with two little buttons, yet the game manages to give us a little variety in Buffy's moves. Of course, it doesn't really matter, since all you need to do to complete the game is mash the buttons like mad, then stake the nasties.

Story: 7/10
The story is the only thing that kept me playing this game. The game seems to take place in between seasons four and five of the series. Vampires from all over the world are coming to the Hellmouth for some reason or another, and as the Slayer, it's your job to find out why. It sounds simple, but the game does a pretty good job of recreating the show's feel. It's amusing at times, and feels like it could be an episode of the series. A bad episode, but an episode nonetheless. You get to visit several locations from the show, such as The Bronze, Angel's Mansion, The Initiative, and the Hellmouth itself. The game features most of the show's cast, as well as a few cameos by characters from Angel's show, and a certain supporting character everyone loves to hate. Still, there's two people missing - Riley and Spike. Now, as for Riley, good riddance. The game is stale enough without Captain Cardboard around. But no Spike? Travesty! The game even toys with us a few times by mentioning him, or making it seem like he'll be showing up sometime soon, but he never does. For shame, THQ. For shame.

Final Score: 4/10
The only halfway decent thing about this game was the story, and even then, the finished product is barely mediocre. It's a hard cartridge to find, and because of that, it's expensive. Do yourself a favor and buy yourself the Buffy game on X-Box instead. It's infinitely better, and you can afford two copies of it for the same price as one copy of this pathetic GBC version. Hardcore Buffy fans may be able to play through it for the story, but even then, it's a rental at best, and you'll still feel like you've been ripped off in the end.

Here endeth the lesson.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/12/03, Updated 04/30/03