Monster House for the Game Boy Advance is a surprisingly good licensed game. It's a Zelda-like, with top-down view where you fire a water gun at enemies to defeat them. The progression is fairly linear, but it does offer some secrets that you can discover when you get certain items later in the game.
You control 3 kids, Jenny, DJ and Chowder, that you can switch between at any moment unless separated during certain sections. Each has a unique ability, their water gun and their own health bar. Jenny has less health but moves faster and her burst attack is a spurt of water, and she can crawl in ssome spaces which separates the team, DJ is has average health and speed, his burst attack is a constant water stream, the attack is similar to Jenny's, and Chowder has the most health, but he's also slow, his specialty is strength, as he can push some heavy objects and just push things faster. His burst attack is a little spray of angled water drops, and to be honest I found this hardly useful in combat, unless the enemy is big. You'd guess his normal attack where you shoot a single drop of water would be stronger but I didn't find any difference, not to mention that he's slow at normal shots as well. If you don't want to use too much health or water for DJ and Jenny, you can use Chowder. Water is limited for burst attacks and if any of the kids' health reaches 0, you'll be back to the previous save so you'll also need to manage your resources carefully by utilizing all three kids at appropriate times. For the controls, you can lock your direction allowing for strafing, shoot a water gun or use an item, switch between kids and dash by double-tapping the direction. From my experience, the dashing just doesn't feel that great, I would sometimes dash when I didn't mean to, usually into a damage source, it's simply not as good as using a dedicated button for that, but it wouldn't be possible with the control scheme that the game presents.
Throughout the game you'll find various items that help with progression and with combat, such as Chowder's water baloons that act as a ranged area of effect attack that can also put out fireplaces, which is required for progression, but the game also has optional stuff off the beaten path like water gun upgrades or health upgrades, so seeking these out can be beneficial. There are also toys that are simply for 100% completion, and maybe better ending, I'm not really sure.
The monsters you fight are appropriately monster furniture, like chairs or bookshelves that come alive and have cool designs, though there's not much variety, which can be said for the bosses as well. You have a mannequin, monster carpet, then you fight mannequin two more times, then the final boss, the furnace. The game really could've used better boss variety, as the mannequin is basically the same, except with more candles you have to put out before you can damage the boss, not to mention that the fight itself isn't very fun, though maybe I just didn't find a good strategy for it.
The presentation is pretty good. The soundtrack is overall good, with appropriately creepy themes, and the envoirements are as good as ever, and the characters look and animate decently well. I don't really have any complaints for the music and graphics.
Of course, Monster House isn't perfect, being constrained by the license, budget and team size. The fact that the game lists just one tester from the developer's team and just a handful from the publisher should raise some alarms. At times the game can be unpolished. There are some bugs, though thankfully most of them are visual, like occasionally the game didn't render some tiles correctly, creating a void, confusing me once. Once I got cornered by the monsters with the pit behind me, which quickly drained HP, resulting in game over. There are a few instances where the enemies are placed close to the entrance, resulting in unavoidable damage. Sections where you have floating platforms over pits (or floating in water) mostly suck because sometimes you have to wait a bit before platforms sync and you can move from one to another, and if you fall into a pit, you'll be back on solid ground. Don't accidently dash on these ones. The game can be occasionally stingy on save locations, most notable example is the sewers (Basement 3), where the save point is quite a ways into it, and the game can be pretty punishing when you game over, having you re-do big portions, and sometimes lengthy backtracking. I admit I used save states because I didn't want to subject myself to repeating certain sections. Lastly, I wish the blueprints (in-game maps for each floor) were a little more detailed, they show where save points are, but it would've been nice to also know where the elevator or ladders are located.
With that said however I still think the game is above average. While Monster House wouldn't be as highly regarded as something like Sponge Bob Squarepants Battle For Bikini Bottom, I still think it's a solid licensed game. It's faithful, offers good, though flawed challenging gameplay, with nice presentation and even extras, like hard mode and "Thou Art Dead" bonus game after you beat it once. I'd recommend you check out this game, you may get pleasantly surprised with this little hidden gem.
You control 3 kids, Jenny, DJ and Chowder, that you can switch between at any moment unless separated during certain sections. Each has a unique ability, their water gun and their own health bar. Jenny has less health but moves faster and her burst attack is a spurt of water, and she can crawl in ssome spaces which separates the team, DJ is has average health and speed, his burst attack is a constant water stream, the attack is similar to Jenny's, and Chowder has the most health, but he's also slow, his specialty is strength, as he can push some heavy objects and just push things faster. His burst attack is a little spray of angled water drops, and to be honest I found this hardly useful in combat, unless the enemy is big. You'd guess his normal attack where you shoot a single drop of water would be stronger but I didn't find any difference, not to mention that he's slow at normal shots as well. If you don't want to use too much health or water for DJ and Jenny, you can use Chowder. Water is limited for burst attacks and if any of the kids' health reaches 0, you'll be back to the previous save so you'll also need to manage your resources carefully by utilizing all three kids at appropriate times. For the controls, you can lock your direction allowing for strafing, shoot a water gun or use an item, switch between kids and dash by double-tapping the direction. From my experience, the dashing just doesn't feel that great, I would sometimes dash when I didn't mean to, usually into a damage source, it's simply not as good as using a dedicated button for that, but it wouldn't be possible with the control scheme that the game presents.
Throughout the game you'll find various items that help with progression and with combat, such as Chowder's water baloons that act as a ranged area of effect attack that can also put out fireplaces, which is required for progression, but the game also has optional stuff off the beaten path like water gun upgrades or health upgrades, so seeking these out can be beneficial. There are also toys that are simply for 100% completion, and maybe better ending, I'm not really sure.
The monsters you fight are appropriately monster furniture, like chairs or bookshelves that come alive and have cool designs, though there's not much variety, which can be said for the bosses as well. You have a mannequin, monster carpet, then you fight mannequin two more times, then the final boss, the furnace. The game really could've used better boss variety, as the mannequin is basically the same, except with more candles you have to put out before you can damage the boss, not to mention that the fight itself isn't very fun, though maybe I just didn't find a good strategy for it.
The presentation is pretty good. The soundtrack is overall good, with appropriately creepy themes, and the envoirements are as good as ever, and the characters look and animate decently well. I don't really have any complaints for the music and graphics.
Of course, Monster House isn't perfect, being constrained by the license, budget and team size. The fact that the game lists just one tester from the developer's team and just a handful from the publisher should raise some alarms. At times the game can be unpolished. There are some bugs, though thankfully most of them are visual, like occasionally the game didn't render some tiles correctly, creating a void, confusing me once. Once I got cornered by the monsters with the pit behind me, which quickly drained HP, resulting in game over. There are a few instances where the enemies are placed close to the entrance, resulting in unavoidable damage. Sections where you have floating platforms over pits (or floating in water) mostly suck because sometimes you have to wait a bit before platforms sync and you can move from one to another, and if you fall into a pit, you'll be back on solid ground. Don't accidently dash on these ones. The game can be occasionally stingy on save locations, most notable example is the sewers (Basement 3), where the save point is quite a ways into it, and the game can be pretty punishing when you game over, having you re-do big portions, and sometimes lengthy backtracking. I admit I used save states because I didn't want to subject myself to repeating certain sections. Lastly, I wish the blueprints (in-game maps for each floor) were a little more detailed, they show where save points are, but it would've been nice to also know where the elevator or ladders are located.
With that said however I still think the game is above average. While Monster House wouldn't be as highly regarded as something like Sponge Bob Squarepants Battle For Bikini Bottom, I still think it's a solid licensed game. It's faithful, offers good, though flawed challenging gameplay, with nice presentation and even extras, like hard mode and "Thou Art Dead" bonus game after you beat it once. I'd recommend you check out this game, you may get pleasantly surprised with this little hidden gem.