Ok, so straight away I am very well aware I may not be the target audience for DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power. As my mid thirties are quickly slipping away from me, I admit I have not been keeping up with a series targeted for teens. Although this doesn’t mean I’m not willing to give this game a chance. It at least looks like a fun brawler, don’t super speed through this review! 

DC Super Hero Girls is a TV series/franchise, envisioning a bunch of DC’s Super Heroes as teens attending Metropolis High School. Batgirl, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Jessica Cruz), Bumblebee and Zatanna are all friends, attending school by day and fighting crime by night as their alter egos. Villains Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Livewire, Catwoman, Giganta and Star Sapphire also all attend the school as their secret identities. Lex Luthor’s construction robots have gone haywire and destroyed a large section of Hob’s Bay. Lex generously offers to rebuild the area with the help of teen power. Meanwhile toys have come to life and are wreaking havoc on their own, along with the Super Hero Girls and Villians butting heads. Can these Super Hero Girls save the day while navigating teen friendships with villains?

Most of your time will be spent in the open world areas, divided into three sections; Old Town, Hob’s Bay and Metropolis High School. They aren’t enormous worlds by any means, although they do open up as the game goes on. In this part of the game you can run around helping citizens, doing side quests by collecting hamsters or taking pics of graffiti, shopping and completing story missions. Story missions will have you suiting up and jumping into the fray, turning the game into a third person brawler. At first it feels really simplistic, one button to attack, one to dodge and one to jump, but as you level up and spend points on new skills it opens combat up a little. Most of the time you get to choose who you control in the fight, and each of the teens fight differently enough if you want to mix it up. I preferred using Supergirl with her ability to fly, it made dealing with aerial focused enemies much easier. Don’t approach this game thinking the combat will be a walk in the park, you’ll find out you’re not ready for some side quests because you get your butt swiftly kicked.

You’ll want to do well because there are bonuses tied into how well you perform. Managing high combos and holding onto as much of your health as possible are often objectives, as well as managing a few ‘just’ dodges or completing the fight within a certain time. Getting the dodges is pretty tough, the warning window is small and attacks often come from out of view making it even harder to get the timing right for the precious perfect dodge. At first I thought maybe I just underestimated the game's combat, only to find out a lot of the difficulty comes from poor warning. When some areas are smaller and the enemies start getting more powerful, it is easy to get boxed in. This wasn’t helped by poor communication in how close an attack is or where it’s coming from. Ultimately, it didn’t have too much of an impact on the game. Most of the worst fights were optional, and if you do lose a fight a few times the game will offer to restart the fight in 'help' mode.. What I found great about this mode was it would offer the option if you wanted to retry the fight, but it would also ask if you wanted to try again without the help. 

In a way which is fairly modern yet risking quickly becoming behind in the times, the game gives a lot of space to this world's version of Instagram; Supersta. This stand-in for Instagram is a constant presence throughout the game. Some side quests have you taking pictures of certain locations, or Hero/Villain logos graphited all over the town. Even when you aren’t taking photos, you’re regularly getting updates of comments made on your posts, and how many likes or followers you’ve gained. As someone who doesn’t use Instagram it seems exhausting, even the Super Heroes don’t get a break. Hashtags are also very present as they are the titles for story chapters, keeping up with the youth. 

Being a game about teens, shopping is also one of the ways to spend your time. Shopping is something I didn’t explore much, but each hero has a variety of different clothes to purchase to mix it up. There never seemed to be any bonus for picking different outfits, but there doesn’t need to be. Fans of the series will likely get more out of this as an opportunity to dress up your favourite hero (or villain). 

As mentioned earlier, Hob’s Bay needs to be rebuilt, Lex has decided he wants only teens helping to redesign the town. In turn being teens, the squad gets to help decide what buildings get built, as long as you have the cash. As you assist citizens and complete side quests, you’ll also unlock more buildings to choose from. At first I went in overthinking it and worrying about making the wrong decisions about building placement. Just enjoy picking the buildings you want.

When the game was announced it felt like a lot of people had written off DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power. It would be easy to, how many licensed games targeted at younger audiences wind up being something rushed out to capitalise on a franchise. As stated earlier I am not the target audience for the series or this game, but it’s still a pretty solid game. There’s more to it than you’d think, and if you like seeing these characters you’ll be happy to know they’re even fully voiced throughout (even if everyone else isn’t). Hopefully there is more than enough here to appeal to fans, but also for parents looking for more family friendly games that your kids will enjoy.