Summary
- Most Barbie games released in the 80s and 90s were not good, as the goal was to sell the brand rather than provide a good gaming experience.
- However, there are some surprisingly good titles that still came out, like Barbie: Explorer for the PS1, which plays like Crash Bandicoot but lacks a challenge.
- Some Barbie games, like Secret Agent Barbie: Royal Jewels Mission on the GBA, have solid gameplay loops and don't look terrible, despite not being on the best of stealth games.
Barbie began as a toy line in 1959. It was only a matter of time until it reached new media, like cartoons, as well as books and eventually video games. Pretty much every game starring Barbie has been lost to time if they weren’t released within the past decade.
There is probably a good reason for that in that most games are not good. Who would want to preserve bad content? The goal of most licensed-based games is to sell the brand and not to sell a good gaming experience. That’s not true for every company but it happened a lot in the 80s and 90s. These are just a handful of Barbie games across a multitude of consoles with some of them being surprisingly good.
8 Barbie
Barbie is the first game in the toy franchise to hit the NES. It was late into its life too with the game launching in 1991. Fans were assuredly disappointed when they sunk their teeth into this odd adventure. The premise revolves around Barbie dreaming and every level then is based on a new aspect of her life.
It may be a dream but it’s more like a nightmare. The first level, for example, revolves around sports. The graphics are weird looking, the controls are stiff, and it’s ultimately a very uninspired platformer on the NES.
7 Barbie: Super Model
Barbie: Super Model was released in 1993 for both SNES and Sega Genesis on the console side. It’s not much better than Barbie but it at least tried to do something with fashion which is a big part of Barbie’s life. The first level has players drive through traffic, albeit slow traffic, to get to a practice session for modeling.
There are mini-games in-between that will have players match Barbie with her magazine cover. It’s not an amazing concept but it at least feels like a video game with a point.
6 Barbie: Explorer
Jumping ahead a few years, let’s take a look at the 2001 game for the PS1, Barbie: Explorer. The cover makes her out to be an Indiana Jones type of explorer, which she is. The game plays like Crash Bandicoot except with the lack of an attack command or a mess of enemies.
Even though it lacks a real challenge, it’s not bad for a runner type of experience. It doesn’t look half bad a couple of decades later either which not a lot of PS1 games can say.
5 Secret Agent Barbie: Royal Jewels Mission
Secret Agent Barbie: Royal Jewels Mission was a 2002 GBA game. As the name suggests, Barbie was a spy in this game, armed with a mess of gadgets to get past enemies. She could turn invisible to sneak past guards or use a smoke screen to temporarily paralyze them.
Out of the many games on this list, it has a solid gameplay loop and it doesn’t look terrible on the handheld either. It’s no Metal Gear Solid, but Barbie fans probably weren’t expecting that anyway.
4 Barbie: Groovy Games
Barbie: Groovy Games was also released in 2002 for the GBA. It was a mini-game collection that players could get into with friends. The mini-games were simple like one involving ice cream to play tic tac toe or a DJ one that was just a game of matching memory.
The most interesting one was about a conga line that had players gather allies. It’s not a good crop of mini-games, but it is worth bringing up because it was later released in a two-pack with Secret Agent Barbie: Royal Jewels Mission. This was common in the later life cycle of the GBA.
3 Barbie: The Princess And The Pauper
Barbie: The Princess and the Pauper was a 2004 straight-to-video CG movie that also got a tie-in game. The GBA version was handled by WayForward, who most may know from their Shantae series. Players can control two princesses in a simple puzzle platformer adventure.
Erika can sing to knock things down from above like an apple on a tree. Anneliese has a shield that can be used to block objects. This gameplay loop is reminiscent of great games like The Lost Vikings or Trine. Thanks to WayForward’s prowess, it’s not half bad for a licensed-based game.
2 Barbie And The Magic Of Pegasus
Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus was another straight-to-video CG movie. It was released in 2005 and WayForward handled the tie-in game again. It’s a more action-based adventure and the better of the two games that they made on the GBA. An evil wizard has turned the kingdom to stone and it’s up to players to fix everything with a magic wand.
Players can de-stone citizens or whack enemies with it. Future upgrades will grant them more powers like the ability to float. This was not the end of WayForward and Barbie either, so it would be interesting to see them release a remastered collection for the truly diehard.
1 Barbie Groom And Glam Pups
The DS was successful thanks to two big games: Brain Age and Nintendogs. Barbie Groom and Glam Pups is a knock-off of Nintendogs with Barbie owning a grooming shop for pets. Players can choose their breed of dog, feed them, groom them, and even dress them up.
This 2010 game felt a little too late in the cycle to copy Nintendogs. It doesn’t have a robust set of options comparatively but it isn’t offensively bad either. It looks decent enough for the handheld which is the best thing one can say about it.