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Gaming Nexus Forums » Gaming Nexus » Reviews » Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by Sean Colleli » Post a reply

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Message: Add Smiley More Smilies...	Font Color: Default Dark Red Red Orange Brown Yellow Green Olive Cyan Blue Dark Blue Indigo Violet White Black Font Size: 1 2 3 4 Default 6 7 8 9 [quote=GamingNexus]I’m beginning to wonder if every movie that’s released will have an accompanying game. Such is the case with Chronicles of Narnia, the fantasy/fairy tale blockbuster that recently stormed into the box office. Buena Vista Games has just about all the bases covered with a game release for each major platform, DS included. So, is this outing the typical bare minimum churn-out, or was there an effort to take advantage of the DS hardware? Well, the answer is a little complicated. The developers obviously had to scale down the gameplay for a portable, and they chose a dungeon crawler format. You’ve probably played this kind of game before, whether it was in its raw form of classic Gauntlet or cleverly disguised in X-Men Legends. Hack n’ slash dungeon brawlers work great in an action setting, but Buena Vista has done a good job molding the gameplay to the austere character of the Narnia universe. I’ll leave the story comparisons to the fans (I haven’t seen the film or read the books) but on a gameplay basis alone this title works pretty well.The main game starts from the perspective of Lucy, the youngest of the story’s four protagonists. She discovers a pathway to Narnia through an old wardrobe, and soon meets up with a magical creature named Mr. Tumnus. Tumnus serves as the obligatory tutorial, explaining the basics of combat, environment, leveling up and special items. After a few solo sequences Lucy teams up with the rest of her siblings and the game is afoot. Each character has a predisposition toward a distinct skill set, and they possess weapons that are appropriate for those skills. Lucy is armed only with a tiny dagger, but excels in casting healing spells and other such magics. Older sister Susan is a good shot with the bow and arrow but doesn’t fare well in melee combat. Peter, the eldest, is a sword expert, and his younger brother Edmund has similar abilities but can also solve certain puzzles that Peter can’t. This setup is typical of RPG/crawler hybrids, but it offers a surprising amount of customizability. If you like, you can upgrade Lucy’s combat skills to make her the jouster, while Peter can become a spell caster. There are four areas of skill including combat strength, charisma and the like, and what each character focuses on is up to you. The skill set interface is totally controlled with the touch screen, as are the other menus, and the setup feels elegant and organized. My only problem here is the inability to pause while you modify options—this gets hectic and distracting during a heated battle. The health system is more refined than is typical of this genre, and keeps stamina management simple. The health of all four characters is combined into one bar on the status display; as long as there’s health left in the bar, all the children will keep on fighting. This common hit point pool eliminates the hassle of cycling through characters to check each one’s health status, or the need to gather replenishing items among all the children. When a health powerup is collected, it simply fills up the pool.These well-balanced gameplay elements work very well in principle, but the execution leaves something to be desired. Controls and movement are rather sluggish, which makes the already complicated task of managing four characters even harder. Response time in combat is slow, depending on the temperature outside; as it gets colder, the characters respond less quickly and lose more health. This adds realism, but ends up more annoying than immersive, as the characters must find shelter to warm up before their reflexes can return to normal. ...[/quote]
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