Phineas and Ferb: The Quest for Cool Stuff

I’m not even going to pretend I know anything about Phineas and Ferb. It’s another American import and probably the most American game I will play until I get to Darkest of Days. I had no real idea who any of the characters were and I’m still none the wiser and it will stay that way.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by the game for the first 10 or so minutes I played it. Soon after that though, things started to unravel.

Phineas and Ferb follows the story of… Phineas and Ferb, two strange looking children who are either super intelligent or just have super-active imaginations. They go on a quest for cool stuff using a bizarre digging thing in their back garden. They build a museum of cool in which to celebrate.

There is also one of the coolest characters I’ve seen in video games – Perry the Platypus. Whoever thought to give a platypus a fedora and pose him as a crime fighting detective deserves some serious praise. He also has his own theme tune.

The gameplay itself revolves around a simple platforming mechanic as you navigate the super cool digging machine through a variety of different levels, jumping from platform to platform and collecting stuff for the museum. As you progress, you unlock bits of the machine that allow you to explore different parts of levels, like a better drill to get through harder rocks or a headlight to see in dark places – though in reality, the headlight makes no difference so it’s just a device to force you to revisit areas you could not previously go to.

The robot digger thing has two functions, one controlled by Phineas, the other by Ferb. With Ferb, you can jump better and do a spinny attack. With Phineas you can kill enemies with a drill.

So what started to suck about the gameplay after ten minutes? To sum up in one word; jumping. The jumping mechanic is total shite. It suffers from similar issues to JuJu in that forward momentum does not equal a better jump to clear a larger gap. There were so many times I missed jumps because the game decided I hadn’t done something in a very exact way to get enough distance on my jump.

There are occasional jumping sections where you play as the individual characters outside of the digger. These are timed and the jumping issue caused me to fail a few times. It’s not game-breaking but it is annoying. Dying in levels, when you fall into bottomless pits, doesn’t carry too severe a punishment either so it doesn’t make the game harder – it just feels like poor design.

Speaking of unintentional, there are two bits where you have to collect items as both Phineas and Ferb. At the end of a Ferb bit, Phineas says ‘Great job Ferb!’ and you can see Phineas in the background watching so this makes sense. However, when you complete these bits as Phineas, he still says, ‘Great Job Ferb!’ at the end. Ferb is nowhere to be seen so this is just a cut-and-paste to the point where it doesn’t make sense.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 29 Achievements

Despite the gameplay issues, it’s possible to get through the game in under 5 hours and you will nab 8 achievements for doing so. Most of the other achievements are earned by collecting everything in all levels which is essentially all that’s required for the 100% completion.

There are few annoying elements to this. Burford’s races force you to replay levels for no other reason than to beat his time, and upgrading the museum of cool and buying all the customisation items costs more in-game currency than you will accumulate throughout your playthrough so there is a small need to replay levels at the end. It’s so small though, that I don’t think it can be called a grind.

Collecting all of the items is really easy as the game is so linear with the exception of one level where you go into outer space. In this one level, the collectibles are in really obscure locations and out of the way and it’s the only time I had to use a guide to find anything.

As Perry the Platypus, you need to find all the gnomes instead of treasures but these are easy to find as well.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Phineas and Ferb was an okay experience that tried it’s best to shit all over itself which is a real shame. However, it has introduced me to Perry the Platypus so it will always have a special place in my heart. All in all, another quick and easy 1,000 Gamerscore. If you live in America, that is.