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So this one might be a bit of a odd addition to the challenge, especially considering it's the handheld version of Shrek 2, compared to the more well-known console version that's regularly regarded as one of the better licensed games, especially as a co-op beat 'em up. However, while I do also have fond memories of that game, and we'll almost certainly be talking about that one at some point during this list. However, I feel that this game honestly gets pretty overlooked, all things considered. While not some breath-taking spectacle of a GBA game, there's a lot to like about Shrek 2's handheld venture, and that's why I chose to run through it for the challenge, so let's just get straight into it. So, as you would expect, the game's plot relatively follows along with the plot of the movie, split into five different 'books', and each with five chapters (levels) each focusing on a different portion of the movie's plot, as follows: Book 1: Far Far Away - covering Shrek's swamp to their journey into Far Far Away Book 2: Royal Family Feuds - Covering the fight between Shrek and King Harold up until Shrek's confrontation with Puss in the forest. Book 3: The Godmother - Covering Shrek and co breaking into Fairy Godmother's potion factory to steal the Happily Ever After potion Book 4: Big Surprises - Covering Shrek in his new human form attempting to find Fiona, only to end up imprisoned by Fairy Godmother Book 5: Party Crashers - Covering the finale of the movie where Shrek leads the group to lay siege on the castle in order to stop Fairy Godmother's plans to make Fiona fall in love with Prince Charming by force. For a Game Boy Advance game, while the dialogue can be a little stilted and awkwardly written at points, I do think it does a decent enough job of adapting the story of the movie fairly faithfully, if even a little better than the main console game at points in terms of how it covers plot points like Fairy Godmother's visit to Fiona early in the movie, or Human Shrek attempting to find Fiona, which are skimmed over in the console game's adaption. On top of that, we even get a small amount of original portions here, and even changes from the movie's plot, albeit usually to speed things up. For example, we have a few levels based on Shrek and co preparing for the trip to Far Far Away, or a level which covers Puss and Stallion Donkey hiding after Shrek is arrested in order to uncover Fairy Godmother's scheme to slip Fiona a love potion to fall in love with Prince Charming. As a result of that however, it means parts like Shrek being convinced to leave Fiona until he discovers what they're truly planning for her is completely omitted, but really that's to be expected in a game like this. I'm honestly surprised how much we did get. Gameplay wise, the game's genre is honestly surprising, especially compared to previous Shrek games that were beat 'em ups, or weird fighting games. The game is inspired by Blizzard's The Three Vikings, where you take control of one to three characters in every level, each with their own different abilities. This is also one of the points that do coincide with the console game, the GBA game still having a grand total of five different playable characters throughout the game, each with their own attributes, skills, and attacks, and the aim of the game is to use all of their skills to get every character to the end of a given level. For example, Shrek has the most health and can lift heavy objects, including springs and mushrooms to bounce other characters, as well as butt-bounce through certain walls, but has abysmal jumping abilities. Donkey can kick down walls and sneak past villagers who believe him to be a regular donkey. Puss can slide on ropes and climb walls, Human Shrek can reflect projectiles and swipe objects to move them, and Gingy can jump extra high and launch candy canes in all directions, but has the worst knockback and health. So what we end up getting is a puzzle platformer where you need to combine all of the characters' skills in various levels in order to open up the pathways to all of them, and get all of them to the end of a level in one piece. If any character is killed, it's right back to the start of a level within a few seconds. That's not all however, as you can find various power-ups in the levels as well to add to the puzzle nature of the level. From a magical ghost item that makes characters invisible, to a magic mirror that makes them invincible but weighs them down heavily, to a fairy that will allow characters to glide in mid-air. There's also keys you can find in various areas that will open doors, all of these mechanics mixing together to make a fairly competent, fun, if not short puzzle platforming game. That's not quite all either. In every single level, there's 40 coins to grab in every level. So while the levels themselves aren't particularly long, only taking something like 5 minutes at most, the coins can be a little tricky to find in certain levels, with Fairy Godmother's factory in particular having one particularly annoying coin that will outright force you to reset if need be. You also get promised a good reward early on for collecting them all, this game's 100% completion reward, which...we'll get to. The last gameplay mechanic of note is the minigames, where during certain levels, you'll find a Leprechaun hidden in each level, where getting to him as a certain game will trigger a unique minigame. Shrek has to bounce the blind mice as they glide down for as long as he can, Donkey needs to hop on a trampoline over a river for as many bounces as possible, Puss must jump between two ropes, dodging fire, Human Shrek must reflect as many arrows as possible, and Gingy gets a shooting gallery for tossing his candy canes. I would say to also add onto the positives, not only is the graphics pretty good, making use of a Donkey Kong Country-like artstyle via pre-rendered sprites, that does a fairly good job of replicating the visual style of the Shrek series (even if the character dialogue portraits can look a bit odd at points). Still, it's one of the better looking Dreamworks tie-in games on GBA. Also, for another positive - the music is surprisingly pretty good. Every character gets a unique theme, and for some reason, Gingy's unironically goes extremely hard too? Unfortunately however, it ain't all good. For a start, the game's difficulty gets pretty bullshit towards the end of the game, around the start of Chapter 4, where one-hit kills and fail conditions start to reign supreme, immediately snapping you back to the start of a level without so much as a death animation. Special mention goes to Fairy Godmother's potion makers, who not only start to come three or four at a time in certain levels, but they insta-kill you by turning you into a slug, becoming a irritating obstacle every single time they show up, especially in the final book where they show up non-stop. Furthermore, the game's bosses are not remotely anything to write home about. There's five 'boss chapters', but only two of these really involve actual boss fights, and even one of those is a stretch. Chapter 1 is just a simple brawl with villager mooks. Chapter 2 is the only boss fight where you need to dodge Puss' attacks and lift him up three times. Chapter 3 is just a timed race to the end of a level with Donkey, Chapter 4 is the same, a timed race to escape prison as Gingy, and finally - Chapter 5 is a 'fight' against Fairy Godmother, but really all you do is spend a full minute dodging one-shot kills (in fact, the very same magic slug transformation attack), and afterwards, Fairy Godmother goes down in a end cutscene. The final thing too is the 100% reward is just complete rubbish. The game tries to hype it up at the very beginning when coins are introduced to you, and what do you get? You just get the option to play any of the five boring minigames within the chapter select at your leisure, rather than needing to try and find the Leprechaun within a level. So that's about it. Is Shrek 2 some hidden gem on the GBA? Probably not. It's got the usual problems you'd expect with a GBA tie-in game, the bosses are non-existent, and the difficulty gets annoying towards the end, but it's a solid 7/10 platformer, and it's also short enough that you can easily blitz through it within two or so hours. For what it's worth, it's a unique charming and fun little puzzle platforming game that you wouldn't expect from a Shrek game of all things, and I do think it's worth trying out at least once, especially given how often it's overshadowed by it's console counterpart. It did do good enough to get a Puss centric original sequel a year later. That one does suck though.