Several years ago, while in a hospital bed with terrible cable TV, I discovered a little show called “The Fairly Odd Parents.” Maybe it was the painkillers or bad food, but I really enjoyed the show. I still catch it now and then with amusement. As everything kid-oriented, it is law that merchandising and (especially) video games must follow. Sometimes, they hit the mark and capture the excitement and fun of the show, but sometimes, they miss, completely.

The show features a young boy named Timmy that has such a miserable home-life that he is joined by his Fairy Odd-Parents (dim Cosmo and clever Wanda). They grant him wishes intended to help him out of situations, but with the young mind of Timmy in action, the solutions are often worse than the problems. One of his school foes is a Teacher named Denzil Crocker. He believes in fairies, but getting proof constantly eludes him. In the game, due to an accident, Crocker has unleashed a terror on the planet in the form of the fairies’ evil twins — the Anti-Fairies. Thus, the Clash with the Anti-World begins. It’s a familiar side-action scrolling game with all of the leaps and threats you’d expect from such a game.

As Timmy, you must battle the evil fairies and their weapons — trying to put the world back in order. By bopping the evil fairies, you get “Wish Power Wands” (collected Mario-style) that you can save up to grant a wish when it’s needed. For example, with enough wands collected, you can change yourself into a beefed-up gardener that comes in handy for battling the Timmy-eating plants (think: Little Shop of Horrors). Using the “L” button, you can choose from a small selection of power-ups and use them for your particular situation. Collecting wands isn’t easy, but losing them IS. If you get whacked by a foe, you will lose some or all of your saved wands. That happens - a lot.

There are some creative characters, as is the case with the namesake show, but there isn’t much to make you want to endure this game’s numerous flaws. I’m playing and thinking to myself: “How would I do if I were much younger and not as seasoned at playing this type of game?”. I believe I would think it’s hard. Dang hard—in the Easy mode. When you get hit in the Easy mode, you lose ALL of your collected wands-- and have to scramble to gather them up again before they fade away. In the Medium and Hard modes, you still lose them all, but not all of the lost ones appear on the screen. For example, if you had a dozen wands and got hit; only half of those might appear to retrieve again. More differences in the modes are the “chasing” and aggressive behavior of the bad guys. They will hunt you like a fox. You can barely execute a jump without them tapping you and knocking the stuffing out of your slight frame. IF you can make it far enough, you get to interact with a parrot (the best of the lot), pirates and the aforementioned plants, which are a problem early-on. The game is not complicated to learn and the moves execute with nice precision (no lag or odd jumping), but the placement of baddies — and how fast they move into your path — is pretty annoying. At least you’re given a fast moving image of your path before the level starts, but once the action begins, it’s pretty aggressive. The double jumping is pretty generous, but I still found myself directly in the path of an evil Fairy too easily. It’s hard to leap, aim and land on top of them — which is how you stun them and get a wand. A slight miscalculation and you’re going to get shaken up, losing some of all of your wands (depending on the mode).

The graphics are pretty nice for a game with so many characters. The upside to it being so tricky is that the moving characters and obstacles are well defined and easy to isolate from the backgrounds. The environment is appropriately “cartoonish.” That works well, but doesn’t make for great eye candy.

The audio consists of forgettable kaleidoscope music in the background, and tired “blips and boinks” during the action. There’s dialog — but in the form of readable scripts. One of the options is to turn off the music, which I did after an hour.

The game is not long. An average player should whiz through it in a day or so. Then, play it again in a different mode. Then, go trade it in for a dollar off an Xbox title. The game just does not stand out in any particular area. I guess it was “time” to do another Odd Parents game, and they threw this together before going home for the day. Right down to the Crimson Chin’s appearance, it follows the show, faithfully. But, somewhere in the translation, it loses the spark that makes the show appealing to us fans. If they want to create a game with some buzz, they need to get away from clones and create something we haven’t seen before … or at least as much. The show was created in that spirit, so why not a future sequel title?  

Gameplay: 5.5
The game plays like any other side-action adventure. Run along, collect things that give you power-ups, and avoid things that hurt you. There are some mini-games contained within the main game, but they are minimal and not enough to create much excitement. The jumping is nice and the vertical distance is beyond other games, but it’s never in a good spot — where you can land, gather yourself and jump again — fast enough to land on a foe’s head to collect some wands. Instead, you land, and get pounced pretty quickly. If you want to play it safe and not go after wands, that’s fine. But, it will take longer to get your wishes granted — which helps complete the game. There’s no auto-save or other internal backup. Keep a crayon handy, as you’re going to have to write down the cryptic passwords they throw your way after level completions.   

Graphics: 7.0 
Probably the best part of the game is the graphics. The colors and on screen characters look nice. They stand out enough to know what they are (but keep the booklet handy for “friend or foe” information), but there isn’t much else to look at. The backgrounds are almost artistically minimal. Maybe that’s part of the cartoon intention, but it looks more like they forgot to finish the game.  

Sound: 6.0
The music hums along and annoys you enough to want to turn it off. That saves battery life, and sanity. There isn’t much in the way of environment or action sounds to brag about. Things occur, there’s a sound, and move on. I wanted to hear some (minor?) screeches or a bit of Cosmo talking (he cracks me up). Is that too much to ask?  

Difficulty: Hard
It’s a kid’s game. So, I am thinking about a young person picking this up and trying to whiz through the levels. Just on sheer annoyance, you will get frustrated at losing a couple dozen collected wands from a hit—in the EASY mode. Or, play in one of the harder modes and you still lose them all… but only have a small sampling of the lost quantity to pick up again. There aren’t more than a half dozen levels, so finishing it fairly quickly is within reason. If that is too easy, then Medium cranks it up quite a bit more. I’m just basing my thoughts on the default (Easy) game that loads. You want more frustration? Go head and bump it up.

Concept: 5.0 
I like the show for its originality. I want to like the game for the same reasons. As the seasons come and go, they do more and more with alternate “Fairy- world” (or maybe it’s just me). It would be nice to not have to see the same things we see on the show. Build on the themes and “rules” of the show, but make it something very different. There are some great characters to build on, but this was just tired and too familiar.    

Overall: 6.0
I did want to like this game — a lot. The show has sentimental value for me, and I wanted to get a game that allowed me to explore the universe that they’ve created. One of the things I like about gaming is the ability to immerse you in the worlds that imaginative people create. I appreciate that such ability is limited with only being on a GBA, but some creators have pushed the GBA beyond what I thought it could do. Not every game is going to do that, but to have so many sequels from a show; this one should deliver more than it does. First efforts kind of get a curve on the grading — if the attempt is obviously there. There’s hardly anything original about this game, and the plot is tired and uninspiring. I’ll still watch the show on TV, and save the game for my child to play in a few years (yes, it will be “retro” by then!). As each new scene unfolded, it looked and felt no better than any similar games from a few years ago. T