The Powerpuff Girls are an animated phenomenon and now they’re on the GBA thanks to developer Sennari & BAM! Entertainment. Mojo Jojo A-Go-Go features a sinister plot of Mojo Jojo, who has flooded the city of Townsville with his mechanized minions. Stolen jewels power these “Mobots”, so it’s up to the Powerpuff Girls to shut down the robots and recover the loot. However, the girls don’t even find out until Mojo arrives at their house and steals Chemical X—the source of their powers!

The girls take chase, with players controlling all 3 girls and alternating between them. Non-active girls can retain power-ups they’ve collected and will regain some health slowly. Each girl can fire eye beams, which can be fired at a distance and punches, which are more powerful but close range. Power-ups can be combined as a neat feature, and rotating girls to optimize the power-ups or to make sure you don’t lose one in battle adds strategy to the mix.

At the end of each level, the girls confront a boss, usually MoJo Jojo himself in some form. A notable exception is the giant mecha octopus boss, seen on the game’s box art. Upon defeating the boss, a short cinema scene rolls and it’s off to the next stage.

The game is challenging and the difficulty prevents the game from getting too repetitive. You have to be paying attention at all times to what’s happening on screen; alternating girls, optimizing and utilizing power-ups, dodging fire and collecting gems from destroyed enemies… Even for an experienced gamer, it can get tough!

It has that edge-of-your seat type action that most games don’t have today. The challenge is also surprising considering that this is a game that will likely attract younger players. I’m not complaining though. I think it’s lame that games seem to be getting easier—I mean, I could take a challenge in my childhood days.

After an especially difficult level, there was a level filled with power-ups, making passing through it a breeze. Not exactly balanced, though it was a lot of fun to go through a level gobbling up power-ups and obliterating the swarms of enemies.

In fact, this is just one of many ways how the game can be inconsistent. While the backgrounds in the first level are even more repetitive than Hannah-Barbera cartoons, Level 2: Townsville Harbor has the girls flying over a bridge, over the ocean, over a boat and then they take the fight underwater.

One area where there is almost no diversity at all is in enemies. There are only a couple enemy types, each with a couple of variations. The result is being bombarded with wave after wave of critters that look alike, which drags the game down a great deal. I can understand Mojo Jojo wants to destroy the Powerpuff Girls & take over Townsville… but if he has so many gosh darned-robots powered by gems, wouldn’t he have more than enough riches to at least build a few more types of enemies?

Powerpuff Girls Mojo Jojo A-Go-Go has a very old-school arcade feel to it. It isn’t anything extraordinary, but it is a fun game starring the Powerpuff Girls.