Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey

5 Comments

1. Danny E. Lee says:

   June 22, 2010 at 9:26 pm

   Review by Danny E. Lee for Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey
   Rating:
   I have a kindergardener at home you loves just about anything with disney princesses. This is her absolutely her favorite. This game is clearly directed at little girls and hit the mark dead on. You play a s princess in training and you wave the Wii mote as a wand. My daughter loved the fact she can perform magic to help out her favorite princesses. As a parent, I play along side her and my joy comes her enjoyment of the game. If you have a little princess at home then it will be hard to disappoint with this game.
2. Allen W. Marshall says:

   June 22, 2010 at 9:41 pm

   Review by Allen W. Marshall for Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey
   Rating:
   I bought this game for my 7 and 8 year old daughters, who love the Disney Princesses.
   
   Neither of them are expert video game players and generally prefer sim-like games such as Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing. They loved the game play of Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey but it was over within 2 1/2 hours…and part of that included customizing their character before the game started.
   
   For $20 it might have seemed like a good purchase, but at twice the price it is a disappointment.
   
   Essentially, it would be a good game for very young children who have short attention spans, but any older than 5 or 6 and it’s just not worth it.
   
   Hopefully Disney Friends for DS will provide more replay value.
3. Q says:

   June 22, 2010 at 9:59 pm

   Review by Q for Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey
   Rating:
   Granted, it’s not the longest or most challenging/complex of Wii games. Honestly, that’s part of what makes it perfect for our 5yo. She doesn’t get overly frustrated feeling like she’s not making any progress, and it’s divided very nicely into chapters so as to allow for bits of game play in each session (she’s 5, we don’t allow her to play for 1/2-day marathons). She has just mastered it once, but is already excited to play it over again. I’m confident that this time will go even more quickly, as she’s improved her skills – that’s *my* favorite part of the game, it has improved her skills with the Wiimote/nunchuck enough that I’m confident that other games will now be less frustrating for her too. She’s also figured out a bit more about how to navigate in Wii worlds, so her understanding of the games in general has increased.

   For us, that skill improvment, combined with her glee at interacting with the princesses, was worth the price.
4. David P. Tong says:

   June 22, 2010 at 10:19 pm

   Review by David P. Tong for Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey
   Rating:
   Summary:
   
   Great for younger kids (ages 4-5). Older kids will find it too simple. Adults will find it buggy, overpriced and frustrating.

   With a brand new Wii in the house and a princess-mad 4 year old it seemed like a perfect match. And it was; she loved the game. But it could have been so much more.

   The game is made up of four “worlds” each with three “chapters”. The difficulty and length of each chapter varies but each one takes 10-30 minutes to complete. You could easily complete the game in a couple of hours if you tried so we rationed our daughter to one chapter at bedtime.

   Play requires the nunchuk – you move around with it and press the Z button to interact, and that’s difficult for a 4 year old to grasp. Fortunately the “cross” also moves the character, so the parent can hold the nunchuk and help the player move around.

   Similarly the two player mode requires a second nunchuk. Be warned that if you try to start a two player game without a second nunchuk you’ll end up having to reset the game. Bug.

   You start by customising your character. That’s rather like building a Mii. You can go back and change your outfit during the game, but the path back to the changing room isn’t obvious to a kid (it’s the other staircase).

   Having done that there’s a simple training exercise to show you how to use the remote. Since it’s supposed to be a magic wand there are three ways to wave it and cast different spells. This is the only part of the gameplay that makes use of the Wii’s unique capabilities.

   In each chapter there are objectives to accomplish which involve playing mini-games. The mini-games are weak and typically involve following a sequence or moving a container to catch falling objects. They are pure padding, and my daughter found some of them frustrating.

   In two player mode you run around together casting spells but players complete each of the mini-games alone.

   Within the chapter you move around and are guided by gemstones that you collect. The game keeps a total, but when you get to 999 it stops counting. You can also get gems by opening locked chests and helping people in the game, but since the gems mean nothing there’s very little point. Similarly you can jump by pressing the A button, but there’s no actual need to do this at any point in the game other than to reach locked chests.

   Once all the chapters are completed there’a a final scene and the credits roll. Beyond the credits there’s an extra “bonus” chapter, but it’s the shortest of all and not worth the expectation. You can also revisit the four worlds, but there’s nothing to do.

   Clearly Papaya have built a game engine that they plan to put to much better use in future games. You can “interact” with characters that you meet by pressing the Z button, but in this game they just speak a line of dialog; they serve no useful purpose.

   They do need to work on the graphics engine; there’s some nasty jagged lines in many scenes.

   Overall I’m resaonably happy with the purchase. It’s kept my daughter occupied and having completed it she wants to play it again. Clearly it’s overpriced; the PC version is only $20, has bugs and could have been a lot better. But she’s only 4; she doesn’t know that and since she’s happy with it, well, that’s the main thing.
5. Dianna G. Narotski says:

   June 22, 2010 at 10:25 pm

   Review by Dianna G. Narotski for Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey
   Rating:
   I bought this for my daughter for her 5th birthday. I also bought her Catz2 for Christmas. Catz2 was unplayable for her (despite being a fairly easy game… it also requires reading). This one started out as being hard for her to control, but she started to actually grasp it and after completing a few levels, she can actually hold both the wiimote and nunchuck herself. She still has a bit of trouble maneuvering the girl with the nunchuck’s joystick, but overall she can do it on her own.

   She finds all bad guys to be scary… the bogs in this game she freaks out a little and they scare her, but they’ve been easy enough for her to defeat (no dying) and she doesn’t have to aim, just wave the wiimote up and down.

   She really loves the game though, and is happy to go into the levels (without the scary bogs) and wander around.

   The bad part about the game is that whenever you need to point the wiimote at the screen, the pointer is VERY finicky and it’s difficult to do, even for an adult. You would think for $40 for a game, that Disney could release a game without a bug like that.

   Also, once you go back IN a level after you’ve done all 3 “chapters”, you can’t get out again without going to the main menu and choosing “return to castle”.

   Collecting Gems means nothing, and the counter stops at 999. It would’ve been nice if there was a Princess Store or something you could buy outfits with or something.

   I think after playing this game, that she’ll have a better grasp about the Wii’s controls and will be able to play other games without as much frustration. Too bad this one was expensive though, I’m not sure it’s worth the money for a learning kids game without a ton of replay value.