Review: The PowerPuff Girls: Defenders Of Townsville
Wed, March 19, 2014 
About a month ago, Cartoon Network and Radian Games revealed a new PowerPuff Girls game headed to Steam featuring the artistic style of the 2014 special that aired on Cartoon Network a while back, as well as the classic artistic style from the original cartoon that we all grew up on and loved. In addition, PowerPuff Girls games don't have the greatest track record. I mean, some can be extremely fun but others are just down-right cashgrabs. However, PowerPuff Girls: Defenders of Townsville is definitely not a cashgrab. It's a fantastic, fun, thought-out Metroidvania-esque video game that is completely addicting and replayable with goregous art, despite being on the short side.
PowerPuff Girls: Defenders Of Townsville has incredibly great level design accompanied by it's stylistic aesthetic. In the options of the game, switching between "Classic" and "Modern" PowerPuff Girls design doesn't only change the design of the girls, but the entire game world with it. The amount of effort put into that alone is incredible, especially considering how detailed and depthful the enviroments truly are in the game itself. Along with the visual style, in "Classic" mode you can change the amount of pixelation the graphics have to truly get an old-school arcade game feel. In addition to the incredible aesthetics of the game, one of my favorite things about it is the brilliant level design that encourages exploration. The game starts off with the PowerPuff Girls forgetting how to use their powers, so you must collect power-ups to "remember" them which eventually allow you to get past certain obstacles within the level design. After all, it is a Metroidvania-esque game and exploration is a huge part of the genre and PowerPuff Girls incorporates it seamlessly, especially considering the difficulty.
Level design isn't the title's only highlight as the gameplay is incredibly simple, but fun and evolves along with the progression of the game. The controls are simple and fluid (using an Xbox controller; X/B to punch, Y to switch powerup, A to dash) and mesh together well. The game definitely starts out boring due to the fact that the girls have "forgot" their powers and they must remember them, but very quickly you gain the ability to fly and shoot energy beams from your hands. Soon this evolves into eye laser beams and eventually, a third move unique to each girl that helps progress and unlock certain areas in the map. The gameplay evolves with the player and the progression of the map, and while at times it may seem the girls are overpowered (especially with Charge Attacks), the boss battles will make you think twice about that notion (especially with MoJo JoJo.). To summarize, PowerPuff Girls' gameplay evolves naturally with the player and is incredibly simple to control. It offers rewarding perks to unlock and discover new parts of the map.
To wrap up, there are very little cons with PowerPuff Girls: Defenders of Townsville. Mainly, in my opinion, the game almost desperately needs a minimap. I kept constantly pressing "Start" to check where I should be heading and where I've been, even though after I while I had almsot memorized the map from viewing it too much. In addition, the boss battles are almost the exact same. Yes, they continue to get harder but they all have the same overall goal; avoid the hits and attack the machine holding the hostage. Finally, the game is way too damn short! The main campaign can be completed in about 4 hours, but there's an additional "story" called "MoJo's Key Quest" which is good for another few hours. Is it worth almost ten dollars? That's up to you to decide, but it's definitely longer than Ground Zeroes.
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