Who would have thought a generic platformer with Sabrina sprites would be this complete?
We join Sabrina in her first Gameboy Colour game based on the animated series, and, as usual, Sabrina has misused her powers and must resolve them with the help of Salem, the cat. Zapped!'s story revolved around Sabrina turning her audience into a horde of wildlife creatures thanks to a lousy pun and literal witchcraft. The purpose of the game is for Sabrina to "zap" each creature back into it's human form. The level system is consistent, but not innovative. There are 4 levels to a "world", with each "world" culminating in a boss battle with another creature which Sabrina must transfigure into a human. With the completion of the boss battles, the player will progress to the next "world". Each "world" has a different setting, but none are very original; school, beach etc. that sort of thing.
With the basic premise of the game down, now on with the basics of gameplay. The levels are not completely linear, most require scouting for the rest of the creatures, for each level requires you to zap all creatures back into their human form. Some objectives will require the use of Salem, who can blast special "Salem blocks" and squeeze into tight places. Salem is also more vulnerable than Sabrina, and once incappacitated, must be revived by Sabrina by returning to his spawn point, as the player can only gain control of Salem at certain points in the level. With those elements explained, the levels do get repetitive very quickly.
One of Zapped!'s biggest problems is it's save system, which features the use of 4-character passwords in the form of the heads of characters from the show. Now, this isn't all bad, but sometimes, when your out and about, you don't have a pen and paper to jot down your most recent password. This can be very painful on occasions. That being said, the game can be easily beaten in about 4-6 hours, although some of the later levels become very challenging and tedious, so much so that progression is a complete chore.
The sound in Zapped! varies from catchy background music to comic and over the top sound effects. Only one thing can be said about the sound, holding down B to charge your zap is very pleasurable, you won't want to stop.
Problems with saving and lack of variety aside, Sabrina the Animated Series: Zapped! is an underappreciated licensed title that seems to have been overlooked since it's release, a darn shame, even if this and it's sequel were basically the same game.