If you were a girl who liked to game in the early ‘90s, obviously the only way you would play a game was if it was specifically tailored to the female gender, right? Obviously not, but the developer of Barbie: Game Girl, Imagineering, decided that they really needed to make a game just for girls on the new Nintendo Game Boy system.
Now, to be perfectly honest, personally, I did own and play this game. Yes, I was a Barbie Girl and I lived in a Barbie World. It wasn’t because it was the only game that was marketed toward girls (though it was one of the only ones that I remember), but because I was actually in to Barbies.
The game is downright silly, though. It’s essentially your basic jump and avoid obstacles platform game — it just happens to feature Barbie as the main character. The game takes place largely at a mall, where Barbie is trying to buy an outfit for an upcoming date with Ken. Do you actually know this in the game? Debatable. If you just put in the cartridge and start playing, all you see is Barbie outside of a mall, and then apparently in a shoe store. And then? Wait, what’s this? There are multiple levels where…
She’s a mermaid?! OMG, you guys, this was like the combo of my dreams in the early ‘90s. You had Barbie, you had mermaids (big Ariel fan here), what more could a girl like me ask for? What’s that, you say? A memory game in between levels? This game has a puzzle element?! Maybe this game really was made for me.
Okay, calm down. The game is extremely basic, and also very short. You could finish the whole game in less than 15 minutes if you really knew the levels and sped through things, as you can see in various playthroughs available on Youtube. The big ending? You got all dressed up and had a date with Ken. Wow, dude, she really went through some stuff to get to you, what a reward.
I’m pretty sure I made it through the entire game, and that’s saying something, because I rarely ever finished a game back in the day. When watching those playthroughs now, the sounds definitely evoke memories of playing it back in the early ‘90s. Though it certainly does not hold a candle to the likes of Tetris, Super Mario Land, or even Mortal Kombat, it was definitely a game targeted toward girls for the Game Boy, which was unfortunately rare.
Did you play Barbie: Game Girl? Let us know in the comments!
- Barbie: Game Girl was released in 1992, developed by Imagineering, published by Hi Tech Expressions, and was a single-player platform genre game.
- Imagineering developed a lot of licensed games for the Game Boy, including Home Alone, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, The Simpsons: Bartman meets Radioactive Man, and The Ren and Stimpy Show: Space Cadet Adventures.
- Barbie was launched by Mattel in March 1959, and has sold over a billion Barbie dolls, making it the company’s most profitable line, though sales have declined sharply since 2014.
- The Game Boy was first released in 1989, and combined features from the NES home system and the Game and Watch hardware.Â
- In 1995, Nintendo of America announced that 46% of Game Boy players were female, which was higher than the percentage of female players for both the Nintendo Entertainment System (29%) and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (14%).
- Barbie: Game Girl was released in 1992, developed by Imagineering, published by Hi Tech Expressions, and was a single-player platform genre game.
- Imagineering developed a lot of licensed games for the Game Boy, including Home Alone, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, The Simpsons: Bartman meets Radioactive Man, and The Ren and Stimpy Show: Space Cadet Adventures.
- Barbie was launched by Mattel in March 1959, and has sold over a billion Barbie dolls, making it the company’s most profitable line, though sales have declined sharply since 2014.
- The Game Boy was first released in 1989, and combined features from the NES home system and the Game and Watch hardware.Â
- In 1995, Nintendo of America announced that 46% of Game Boy players were female, which was higher than the percentage of female players for both the Nintendo Entertainment System (29%) and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (14%).
