The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy (Game Boy Advance) review "A decent game based on a children's TV show? Yep!"

I randomly started playing this game on a whim not knowing what it was all about or what it was like. I didn't know anything about the show or anything else and figured it would be another mediocre game that wasn't worth the time of day. To an extent, I was right but surprisingly I found it engaging enough to stick it through and finish it 100% and can actually say that it wasn't great but was worth my single playthrough. The game did however inspire me to go and check out the TV show to which I really enjoyed all of the dark and crazy humor.

The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy is a blend of the platform and beat'em up genres, both of which are some of my favorite genres. The game's story follows the theme of the show pretty well but is still pretty generic but is forgivable given the style of game. Billy loses all of Grim's mojo balls which are turning townfolk into the undead and it's off to get them all back across three story stages, one for each character and across 51 missions.

The story mode feels pretty unrealized as if the programmers didn't know what they wanted for the game as all three character's stories can be completed in less than ten minutes a piece and aren't very hard. Essentially you have to run through several small stages defeating some enemies and then a boss at the end. In the end the story mode feels like it's been tacked onto the mission mode when it should be the other away around.

The mission mode however is where the meat and potatoes of the game lie. There are five tiers with ten missions each and a sixth and final tier with only one mission which is simply a boss rush and rather easy and tired way to end a the game. The bulk of the missions play similar to the events in a Super Smash Bros. game. Some of them you have to run through and find the ball in the time limit; others you have to find several pieces of pie in random treasure chests and some of them you have to survive against hordes of enemies for a certain amount of time. My favorite one is probably where you have to kill a certain amount of enemies with a weapon with a limited amount of ammo and you have to often find creative ways to kill all the enemies when you start with less ammo than enemies.

It's these missions that are the bulk of the game and a lot of fun to play through. The one problem I have here is with the difficulty balance. Some of the missions are hair pullingly difficult and I spent so many tries on a few of them that I was getting frustrated and then the next ones turn out to be absolute cake walks and even teh final few missions were way too easy. The control also takes a little bit to get used to. A and B are punch and kick while R is your jump and L is a special move when you fill a meter by attacking enemies. It all starts to work well but when you're used to the typical button scheme of most games it will throw you off for the first while you play it.

The graphics represent the show pretty well and are usually pleasant to look at though a bit repetitive at times. The music is also pretty nice and atmospheric and fits the campy theme of the game pretty nicely and even at times almost eerie sounding. The voice samples sound very close to what they are in the show and I really like that about the game.

The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy follows the show pretty closely, a plus; has nice graphics and sound, another plus and it's also pretty fun to play which is also a plus. As a whole the game isn't a bad game at all but it feels like it's lacking in content overall. They needed to flesh out the story mode a lot more and make it a lot longer and I think I could really recommend the game. As it stands it's a game that's worth picking up if you're looking for something short and quick to play and you need something new to play on your Game Boy Advance. If you can find it for less than five bucks than I'd say go for it.

Community review by vgc2000 (October 15, 2020) vgc2000's more extensive backlog of reviews can be found on GameFaqs. But some now live here.