My Playtime: 18 Hours
Genre: Action Adventure RPG
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Story: The children of the world have lost their faith in Santa, the Sandman, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, due to Pitch's nefarious plan. Without their faith, the Guardians will disappear and allow Pitch to rule the world with fear. However, there was only one light left gleaming. It was now up to the Guardians and Jack Frost to protect the light.
Simply put, there was no plot. It was boring. The same scenes and dialogues repeat one after the other.
Gameplay: This is your simple - adventure, action RPG - video game. So, if you are familiar with this genre, you know you basically fight, level up, increase your stats and gain stronger attacks. However, if you like more details or not familiar, here's a run through.
You have the option to play as any of the Guardians. (I only played as Jack Frost and the occasional Sandman. What can I say? I'm a Jack Frost fangirl.) There are 5 worlds that are accessible and each world has list of quests that the player have to satisfy in order to get 100% completion. However, it was not necessary if you would like to breeze through the game. You could probably beat the game in less than 7 hours.
The controls were easy to get use to. The player pretty much hack-and-slash their way through each world. So, expect a lot of B button mashing. I didn't use the stylus. I either tapped on the screen with my finger or used buttons. Navigation can be bit cagey. Use the map. I kept going round in circles in certain areas that look alike. Also, there were little popups when you get close to a quest.
Surprisingly, the game gave me a real challenge and I consider myself a veteran gamer. I would suggest this game for children 8 and older. The younger set might find this a little hard and will need help. The most frustrating part would be the protection quests. This quest required you to protect someone for a certain period of time. The enemies start off as 1 at a time. Then double and triple as time progressed. Soon, you will bombarded with 20+ enemies! I have to sometime repeat the quest 2 or 3 times. I found that the Sandman was the best choice in these situations.
Graphics: If I were to give it a grade, it will be 3/5. Disappointingly, the images were the still, cartoonish blocked caricatures. Not CG images from the movie. The graphics could've been so much better. The action occurred in the upper screen, while the bottom screen was used for switching characters and accessing the journal. So consider the size of the screen and the faraway perspective. Jack was a tiny, 0.5 inch spindly figure fighting tiny 0.25 inch nightmares. Personally, I think the Wii and your TV would be a better call in regards to the size issue.
Music/Sound: Sadly, there was no voice acting at all. You read their sparse conversations at the bottom of the screen. The reading difficulty was not bad. Children that have just started reading might need help. Their conversations were pretty short and lack anything interesting. If you have seen the movie, you pretty much know what you need to know.
NOTE: There are 2 things I would like players to note. First, I did notice a glitch in North's workshop. The game crashed and restarted. Luckily, it was auto-saved and I didn't lose any progress. That was the only time. Second, lose to Pitch once and beat him at every meeting afterwards. These would take care of the completion requirements. You see, I decided not to fight him the last time, thinking I could go back. No can do. Once you leave the area, you can't fight him again. So, I never really defeated him. I'm pissed about that.
Since I didn't officially finish the game, I will go back and play again in the far future. Despite that, I sincerely liked it. I managed to accrue 18 hours of gameplay. As you would expect, this game is not for everyone. If you are a fan of the movie and RPGs, get it. $30 wasn't a bad deal. The game's difficulty was enough to hold one's interest. However, if you are on the fence, I wouldn't recommend it. I gave it 4 stars because I don't feel its a keeper. The lack of plot, subpar graphics, no voiceacting and little replay value can be a turn off if I wasn't a fan of the movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment