Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice.  These were the ingredients chosen to make the perfect little girls.  But Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient…Chemical X.  Plus a few LEGOs for good measure.  Thus The Powerpuff Girls Team Pack and Fun Pack for LEGO Dimensions was born!  The Powerpuff Girls was one of Cartoon Network’s most successful and well-known shows.  So much so that it got a remake last year (although it isn’t as good as the original).  Now you can relive the adventures of Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup with add-ons for LEGO Dimensions, available for nearly all current game consoles but reviewed on Wii U here.

LEGO Dimensions is essentially like Skylanders, except you build and play with LEGOs instead.  I even wrote a big article about it a while back that you can read.   I’ve been lucky enough to be able to review most of the LEGO Dimensions packs, as WB Games has sent them to me for review purposes, including these, which I’m very thankful for.  The Powerpuff Girls Team Pack comes with two playable characters and two vehicles.  The game gives you instructions on how to build the vehicles once the characters are on the pedestal.  You get Blossom and Bubbles and the two vehicles you get are the Powerpuff Hotline Smartphone and Bubble’s favorite toy Octi.  Here’s a bigger picture of the box.

All three girls can fly and have fast healing powers and super strength.  Blossom has ice breath and Bubbles can scream super loud.  Both can shoot lasers from their eyes while flying and can do a charged laser shot from either the air or the ground.  I kind of wish the Hotline Phone was more like the original, but since this is based on the remake, you build the smartphone first.  But like other LEGO Dimensions vehicles, you can spend studs to upgrade and rebuild your vehicles into different things, and one of the upgrades for the phone looks like the classic one.  In the game, you can hop on the phone and ride it around, and it can even fly and shoot lasers…somehow.  You can also ride on Octi, who skitters around on its legs and can fire a laser as well.  Here they are all built and out of the box.

The Powerpuff Girls Fun Pack comes with one character and vehicle.  You get Buttercup and a green Blast Bot, although I don’t remember there being a green robot in the cartoon show.  Here’s the box.

Buttercup has a few different abilities from the other two.  She’s the toughest fighter, and is stronger than the other girls and can pull open certain handles.  Instead of lasers, she can turn into a tornado blur and home in on enemies.  And by holding onto a certain button, Buttercup can encase herself in a green protective shield and roll around.  You can ride on the Blast Bot and it hovers, but doesn’t fly.  It can shoot out a charged laser, though.  One thing about the figures is that the girls’ heads are way bigger than other LEGO men heads, so they look a little weird when compared to other LEGOs!  And to make them look smaller, their knees don’t bend either.  Here’s a shot of Buttercup and the bot all built and out of the box.

The characters also unlock a new Adventure World and Battle Arena.  You’ll explore the City of Townsville in the adventure hub world.  I like it when LEGO Dimensions does a cartoon world because they make everything cel-shaded with bright colors, so it really looks like the cartoon it’s based on.  Unfortunately, the world is more like the remake rather than the original.  I couldn’t find familiar locations from the old cartoon, like Mojo Jojo’s volcano lair in Townsville Park.  Instead, you’ll battle new villains like Allegro the Party Panda in the sky in Rainbow Land.  You’ll also battle a dragon and meet other characters like Manboy and visit Puppy Island.  Like other hub worlds, you’ll use studs to build structures and take on missions for red and gold bricks.  While I wish they would’ve included more elements from the classic show, fans of the remake should still like this.

Kid Factor:

LEGO Dimensions is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Cartoon Violence and Crude Humor. If you’re OK with your kids watching the show, they’ll definitely be OK with this game, too.  While I would recommend most LEGO games to all ages, I think LEGO Dimensions is best for older kids.  One, the things you build are pretty complicated sometimes, so they would need to be experienced LEGO handlers.  And like other LEGO toys, the sets are pretty expensive so kids would need to know how to keep up with and take care of their toys, as the game is useless without them.  And plus using the pedestal is not very intuitive.  Also don’t forget the whole choking hazard thing with small LEGOs!

And so the day is saved, thanks to The PowerPuff Girls!  In the comments section, tell me your favorite episodes of the TV cartoon.  Mine are the one where they pretend to be other comic book heroes, the one where they try to keep Lucky Captain Rabbit King from getting their cereal, and the one where the Mayor gets kidnapped and each of the girls tells him what happened from their point of view.

Tags: Game Reviews, Movies with Children, Television