VeggieTales: LarryBoy and the Bad Apple

VeggieTales: LarryBoy and the Bad Apple brought characters from the popular animated series about talking vegetables, and its cucumber superhero LarryBoy, to the Game Boy Advance. The game is based on the film of the same name, in which a mysterious Bad Apple sneaks into the city of Bumblyburg, spreading envy, bad moods, and mutual distrust among its residents, and it's up to LarryBoy, with the help of his friends and his plunger gadgets, to restore order to the city.

It's a classic two-dimensional platformer with left-to-right level progression, in which the player jumps over obstacles, dodges enemies, and collects items scattered throughout the levels. The controls and difficulty were aimed at the youngest audience, so the game relies more on simple mechanics and clear level design than on challenges that less experienced players might struggle with. The short levels and frequent save points also anticipated that the game would be played by children still getting used to a handheld's controller.

The title fits into the wave of licensed handheld games that in the middle of the decade accompanied popular children's shows and films on GBA cartridges – like dozens of other movie and TV tie-ins of the time, it relied mainly on a familiar brand and a lower price point. For families who grew up with VeggieTales on video and later DVD, it offered a pleasant extension of the beloved world for travel, even though, from a genre standpoint, it brought nothing groundbreaking, and today it's known mainly to collectors of the complete GBA library.

Why play it: Because it's an undemanding family platformer for fans of the VeggieTales series that even the youngest players can handle.