[#] The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy (Midway, Game Boy Advance, 2006)

I got pie!

For those not up on their 2000s Cartoon Network shows, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy is a pretty twisted grossout humor cartoon featuring an idiot boy, a coldly sadistic girl, and the Grim Reaper who's their friend forever (them's be the namesakes!). I don't know how much the show would do for me as an adult, but the glimpses of it you see through the GBA beat 'em up of the same name definitely amused me. I was surprised revisiting this one! I remember always appreciating how smooth and easy to play it is, but despite not being very deep, even as an adult who watched the show as a kid, it's not bad for a bit.

Mojo balls—artifacts that cause unspeakable evil in people—are bled out into the world, and it's up to the trio to retrieve them. The control scheme is good, with both buttons used to attack, the right shoulder button to jump, and the left to initiate a devastating temporary mojo attack on the waves of killer clowns, pumpkin bats, pogo jumping army men, kangaroos, and God knows what else comes after you. The tutorial onramps you quickly, and the story is—well, over in about a half hour, really. Surprise, an episodic dark comedy for kids doesn't power the story mode in a Double Dragon clone all that well.

Where what fun Billy & Mandy does have in store really lies is in the mission mode, which is also necessary to unlock Mandy and Grim as playable characters. It's your typical fare to kill a wave without being hit, get to a mojo ball quickly, or locate slices of pie in a level, but it's fun in short bursts, and they can get kinda challenging. The animation and graphics are very smooth for the GBA and carry a lot of the personality of the show in them. It's true that it doesn't last long and it's a pretty dumb button masher, but it's like getting mad at Top Gear for not having sex appeal. It's a car show, and it's not Jeremy Clarkson's fault he looks like that.