Phil of the Future Review - Game Boy Advance

Buena Vista Games has come out with a faithful GBA adaptation following the misadventures of that time traveling Diffy family from the popular Disney Channel series Phil of the Future.

The Good

• Beautiful and colorful graphics. Features images of the actual actors and smooth animation.
• Cool gadgets from the future and the ability to switch between three playable characters.
• Entertaining story that fans will enjoy.
• Excellent difficulty for younger teens.
• Four different mini-games that add variety.

The Bad

• The extra characters, Curtis and Keely, are under-utilized and limited.
• Ridiculously poor writing and cheesy dialogue will make you roll your eyes.
• Mini-games are kind of dull.
• Very little replay value, unlikely you'll want to play it more than once.

Story

Features

• Three playable characters that you can switch between on the fly.
• Platforming style gameplay with occasional puzzles thrown in.
• Upgradeable weapons, cool gadgets to play with and stylin' clothes to collect.
• Faithful to the television series.

The Game

I've seen a couple of the episodes and know a little about the Diffy's back story, but the nice thing about this game is that it is not necessary to already be a fan to enjoy it.

Things start off when the Blahs get loose on the town of Pickford. The Blahs are stress reducing pets from the future but overexposure can result in a condition called "The Whatevers" in which people cease to care about anything. It's up to Phil and his friends to get rid of the Blahs, undo the mayhem they cause and protect his family's secret futuristic identities.

You can play as either Phil, Curtis or Keely. However, you will probably end up spending most of the game as Phil. Curtis is defenseless against the Blahs and Keely's attack is slow and hard to use. Phil is the best character of the bunch, as his upgradeable gun easily makes toast of the Blahs, plus his futuristic gadgets allow him to reach places and see things that the other characters can't. You will only want to use Curtis when you need to use his jumping and climbing skills to access new areas. Keely is good for unlocking certain locks that need to be color coordinated with her outfit, and to attack weirdly positioned Blahs, as Phil's gun cannot shoot at angles like Keely's attacks can. I would have liked to have seen more puzzles that utilized these two characters.

Mini-Games

• Laser Ball is basically a game of pong between Phil and his Dad, Lloyd.
• The Gadge-o-matic is a pretty cool puzzle game where you use a limited supply of mirrors to direct a laser beam that will connect various parts to assemble a new gadget.
• Lock-it-izer involves guiding a caterpillar like object over a grid to unlock doors.
• Finally the Skyak Shooter is a classic shoot-em-up where you ride through the skies on your trusty Skyak to shoot down flying Blahs.

The mini-games provide a nice break from the regular game. Unfortunately, they aren't particularly engaging and after completing them once there is no interest in playing them again.

Final Thoughts

Phil of the Future involves a lot of back tracking as it's only after assembling new gadgets or finding special outfits for Keely that you can access certain areas, and there are a lot of items you need to find to finish the game. Luckily, Phil's Mom keeps a list of where to find everything so that item hunting doesn't become too tedious.

The game takes about 10 hours to play with a difficulty that is just right for early teens, but may be too hard for younger players. There were a couple times I got stuck because I did not know the full extent of Curtis's jumping and climbing abilities. The end boss is fairly challenging and takes a while to beat.

After you finish the last mission the game saves automatically and you are done. You are not allowed to explore the world any longer and must start a new game if you wish to do so. The game manual hints that there is a way in the game to fix the Diffy's time machine and allow them to go back to the future but I was not able to find that area in the playthrough. It would have been nice if the game saved before the last mission, not after it, allowing the player to go back and explore the world a bit more. For this atrocious use of a save point alone, I docked a half star off this games rating.

All in all, Phil of the Future is a fun, if somewhat limited game that will help you chase away the Blahs for a few hours.

Patents Tips

Rated E for Everyone by the ESRB. There is very mild cartoon violence that basically involves shooting blob like creatures until they explode into a pile of goo.