When Nine and Nine meet Nine, the depths of reason shall stir. A voice like thunder shall sound and thou shalt know- "THE DC SUPERHERO GIRLS ARE HERE TO SAVE THE DAY"
I wish I could tell you that I know nothing about this branch of the DC franchise and was just as blindsided by this game as a lot of the audience was. I wish I could say that I've never so much as heard of DC Superhero girls, and therefore have no opinion on the show. I wish I could even say that I've never watched so much as a scene, let alone a full episode, or indeed, several. Unfortunately, were I utter any one of those sentences they would be lies. Yes, even the one about watching several episodes. But before you get to judging me- huh, you're already midway through the judging? Okay, well- after you're done judging me, hear me out. So I'm desperate for my DC content, okay? The movies were mostly trash, but at least they showed off the heroes. (But because they were trash, Warner Bros didn't make many of them) The TV shows, yes the CW ones, are pretty meh too, but I've literally watched them all and am out of content. (They really don't warrant a rewatch) All I want to do is see the characters I loved doing their stuff on the moving picture box- is that a crime? No, but then resorting to watching DC Super Hero Girls on the official Youtube channel just might be.
So you might be wondering "You watched several episodes: is it any good?" to which my honest is, "It's alright." I know, not the scathing criticism you were hoping for but in fairness it's just meant to be a show for kids and as far as that goes it's actually a lot better than some of the other original kids shows debuting nowadays. (Or rather, shows debuting on TV. The Netflix original animated kids shows are all vastly superior to this) How does it shape up for someone who wants to see the heroes, or even just their personalities if not their true selves, kinda like how X-men Evolution worked? Yeah, for that it's actually pretty awful. Everyone has their personalities and individual traits drained to their most basic state, most of the episode-to-episode plots are so paper-thin you could summarise them on the back of a fastfood receipt and there's no actual conflict in the entire thing. Yeah. they're a school of superheroes (which actually isn't gender-specific like the title might suggest) ensuring they'll fight the odd crime, but nothing of any significant depth or development happens. It's essentially a show with less drive in it than Supergirl. (Bleagh, I can't believe that I said that; someone remove my tongue.)
'But that's just a TV show,' I thought, 'there's no way this property would somehow manage to become popular enough to warrant any sort of reimaging on any other forum. There's not going to a movie, comic, and certainly not a game.' Whelp, I guess that goes to show why you should never trust your gut for anything. From the very first second that I saw the trailer during Nintendo Direct for 'DC Superhero Girls: Teen Power' I thought: no. There's no way this is real and people are making this and money went behind it. Have we really reached the point where this is the limit of human ingenuity? People spent real money funding this, and now even more people are likely to spend real money buying it? Somebody stop this crazy train we call the world, I'm getting off. (And considering the year we just had, it means quite something to declare that this might be the announcement that broke me.) But then I did the unthinkable, the unimaginable, and watched the trailer with an eye to actually absorb what I was seeing. So do you want to know what I thought of it? No? Ah- well- look I'm going to tell you anyway so just go with it, 'kay?
So this game looks ugly. I do not know what it is, but you cannot sit there and tell me this has something to do with the 'lagging power of the Switch', because that console there has put out games like 'Breath of the Wild', 'Octopath Traveller' and 'Link's Awakening'. I'm talking some truly beautiful titles in it's time, but this don't hold a soggy candle to their brilliant shine. Just looking at the gross textures and shaky resolution puzzles me, this looks like a game not comfortable in it's own skin, like it was made for DS hardware and upscaled. (Which cannot be the case because the show succeeds the DS' popularity by a fair few years) There's also the design, which takes the already 'questionable' direction of the show's art and somehow makes it fall even further. This is a classic case of attempting to transport a 2D style into a 3D space without any remote consideration given to what the conversion process should look like.
As undeniably ugly as it looks, this particular shot does give me fuzzy 'Great Days' vibes.
Breakdown Breakdown.
"Are you really going to sit there and harp on about the visuals?" It's a pretty big deal from where I'm sitting! Part of the 'appeal' of DC Super Hero Girls (if, indeed, it has any appeal at all) is the way in which it softens the hard-edge visual style that the DC universe is know for in order to make it more appealing for, well, teenage girls. This game has made no efforts in that regard and simply regurgitated the show's work without putting any time towards learning why that worked. (if you consider it to have worked at all.) In fact, this actually instinctively reminds me of all the old school girls-themed shovel ware that the Wii generation used to have. You know, like the extended Barbie collection of games, (Pick any, none of them were good) Bratz's games, or the Monster High console games. None of these are free browser-based time killers. (or rather, none of the specific examples I'm referring to) I refer to console releases that attempt to box a lump of coal and sell it on the same shelves as genuine games, whilst having been developed on a shoestring in a few months by some small contracted studio just trying to keep the lights on between real projects. I can't think of a single well developed girl-targeted game, and it's honestly shocking how many I know about in order to make that observation. Of course, that isn't to say that DC Super Hero Girls is necessarily all bad. I did actually see some gameplay trickled in there that almost looked reminiscent of old school action adventure titles. There was some rudimentary fighting, possibly a little exploration, perhaps even some collectibles; basically enough ingredients to make a good time. So just because the art department dropped the ball, that doesn't automatically make the entire game trash, in fact, I'd go so far as to say this is probably the best looking girl-targeted game I've ever seen; but that is such a low threshold to cross I wouldn't celebrate just yet. At the very least I can say there's a husk of a game here, and with that present I don't quite mind all the emphasis on the irrelevant stuff because there's some small substance here; thus all the clothes shopping and amateur Intragram modelling isn't meant to be the substance.
Honestly, it sort of looks like a mobile game ported for the Switch, and for the eye-watering price of £60, it really needs to be a lot more than that. The infuriating thing though, the gnawing tadpole worming around in the back of my brain threating to eat my cortex, is that I cannot find out who the developer is. Not for the life of me. I can't check their work to see if they're competent, or to shame them is this turns out to be as soulless of a cash grab as I presume it to be, I've just got absolutely nothing to go on. So either someone really doesn't want to have their name attached to this game or Nintendo is too embarrassed to reveal whatever inexperienced contractor they roped into this job. (Given that they are, inexplicably, the publisher) Neither option is all that appealing to be brutally honest. I don't know whether to anticipate this oncoming train wreck or observe it with a fine eye, but rest assured, this won't be the last time we hear of this obnoxiously subtitled girls game on this blog.
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