If you’re not familiar with the Bratz franchise, it’s worth taking a minute to learn about this popular and often maligned brand. They’re sort of like trashy Barbies with giant heads, so I braced myself before starting this game.
And woe, I was unprepared for the utter garbage that awaited me.
This game is awful. It’s unbearable. It’s hard to know where to begin when dissecting a game this bad. Let’s start by putting aside the irritating characters, miserable plot, and the fact that the ultimate goal of this game is to win an accessory that would be shunned even on Jersey Shore: a pair of diamond-encrusted go-go boots.
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The first assault to your sense of decency is the artwork. While produced in 2006, the graphics are on par with games that came out a decade earlier. Most puzzling is the choice of text – red text outlined in yellow on a black background. It’s nearly unreadable. Then again, none of the characters have anything worthwhile to say, and none of it will help you understand what on earth you’re supposed to be doing (more on that later), so maybe it’s for the best.
Welcome to your space bedroom
You start off with all four girls in a room that looks somewhat like the interior of the Starship Enterprise. Using the d-pad you can walk around with whatever girl you’re currently controlling. Getting too close to another girl will bring up a dialog asking if you’d like to switch characters. The girls walk slow as molasses, and the collision detection is awful so plan on spending a bunch of time running into things.
You can do a few different things in your home base, such as playing with your pet, putting on makeup, changing outfits, and buying new clothes. The interfaces to do each of these things are so atrocious I thought the clothing shop was broken at first. Speaking of bad UI, it’s entirely unclear how to save your game. You have to press Start, then select Quit, and then it will give you the option to save on the way out.
I'm apparently the worst pet owner
Thanks to the bad UI, it’s never really clear what it is you’re supposed to be doing in the game. My first foray into the game world was a pet competition, where you need to get your pet to do various tricks by speaking them into the microphone. What they fail to mention anywhere is that first you must train your pet back on the Enterprise. I missed the first few commands and was greeted with an “Oops” in big purple letters. Then it started flashing “Train your pet!” as though reprimanding me for being a terrible pet owner.
The rest of the mini-games were all equally miserable, and fall into three basic categories: a rhythm game that isn’t nearly as well done as Elite Beat Agents, racing games where you “collect Blingz” if you can handle the atrocious controls, and “gesture” games where you trace a shape on the screen. All of these are game mechanics that other titles manage to do much, much better.
Gameplay – 1 Star
With better implementation, this might have ranked higher. But the few game mechanics that are present are so badly done it’s just not worth the time.
Replay Value – 1 Star
There’s just not much here that’s engaging.
Artwork – 1 Star
The 3D looks dated, and the design choices are questionable at best
Creativity – 2 Stars
Well, at least you can mix and match outfits.
Messaging – 1 Star
The characters are catty, snobby, and generally the opposite of what anyone wants their daughter to be.
The Final Word
There’s not much going on in this game, and once you layer back on the cast of catty, snobby, mindless characters, you’re left with something that’s best used as a shim under a wobbly table leg. Even Bratz fans will work through the game content in a few hours, and the numerous control and UI problems will frustrate younger players.
