The Good
- Good graphics
- Nice save feature
The Bad
- Storyline is almost nonexistent
- Gameplay is tedious and not fun at all.
- Can't customize heroine
- Heroine moves very slowly.
- Extremely bad pacing
- Short game, although you will wish it was shorter
Story
Lily is the custodian of Castle Bright. One day she finds that 6 magical tiaras are missing and sets out on a quest to find and recover them in time for a festival.Features
- Five different mini-games which increase in difficulty.
- Can interact with 6 Disney Princesses; Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, Aurora, Belle and Jasmine.
The Game
The game starts out with a beautiful introduction which explains how 6 princesses visited a castle in a faraway land and presented a gift of friendship in the form of 6 magical tiaras which brought the castle to life. A young girl named Lily came to help take care of the Castle and the adventure begins.
The graphics are well done and reminiscent of the excellent Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. You play as Lily, who cannot be customized. Since the game will appeal to fans of Disney Princesses, I was surprised the game didn't offer the player a chance to become one by naming the character after themselves.
The game starts off with Lily exploring the living castle named quite appropriately, Castle Bright. The castle is almost glaringly white, and while overall the games graphics are good, they were too bright and washed out. Unfortunately, there is no option to adjust brightness. The game shows you how to move her around and interact with people and the environment, basically a tutorial that's very helpful for the inexperienced gamer.
Lily discovers the missing tiaras and her quest begins. Questing for the most part involves talking to generic townspeople and finding out what they want, so they will direct you to the next person who will also be in need of something, and so on. The townsfolk in the game are very bland and generic, so generic in fact they don't even have names. The cook is named Cook and the Gardener is named Gardener. They have no background stories and offer no plot development, just a series of seemingly never-ending "fetch" type quests. The pacing is horrible and this part, which serves as a very prolonged introduction, has you exploring the world and learning where all the various people and shops are. This segment drags on for 2 or 3 hours with seemingly no progress and nary a princess in sight. Occasionally a mini-game will need to be beaten in order to advance a quest, but for the majority of the game you will just need to go from point A to point B. This wouldn't be so bad if the character you play wasn't so mind-numbingly slow. A run button would have been greatly appreciated as she does have quite a bit of traveling to do.
The game is very linear and will tell you exactly what you need to do, and where to go, so you can advance. There is no real exploration as there is no incentive to. For the most part you cannot interact with the games environment unless its part of an active quest and talking to the townspeople will get you one of two generic responses. Either a direct and blatant hint on what you need to do, or a vague one in the form of "You should help [so and so] now."
After the very prolonged introductory gameplay you get to the meat of the game, when you collect the necessary components to unlock a magical door to one of the Disney Princesses "world". The game box and manual suggest that there are 7 full worlds to explore, and I had visions of exploring the endless seas with Ariel, and magical Arabia with Jasmine. Imagine my disappointment when I found out each princess's world consist of one large room, and only one quest; to find their missing animal friends. Each friend can be found by going back into Lily's world - the map will show you exactly where to find them. Once fetched, you deliver them back to the princess, unlock another magical door by performing another round of "go fetch" quests, rinse and repeat. After helping all 6 princesses you find the missing tiaras in a very anticlimactic way, and the game ends with everyone living happily ever after.
The game took about 5 to 6 hours to finish. You can save anywhere, at anytime, which is an excellent feature that I wish more games implemented. The mini-games get harder as you advance, and the hard levels can be somewhat challenging. The mini-games can be played from the main menu, which is nice, but as they don't offer a lot of gameplay on their own, it is not a feature most will use. Most of the mini-games are simply memory exercises or very simple puzzles.
Mini-Games
- Librarian - Basically a version of classic Memory. You look at a book cover and find its matching pair to make it disappear.
- Potion Shop - Help this shop owner by making potions. Memorize a sequence of colored potions and mix them in the right order to successfully make the final potion.
- Clothes Shop - A simple matching game. Just match the colors of hats, dresses and shoes to make outfits.
- Curio Shop - Help the owner out by restoring scrambled paintings of the Disney Princesses.
- Music Shop - Play music by hitting corresponding button prompts.
- Gem Shop - Help out organizing jewels by putting each gem in the right shaped holes.
Final Thoughts
Disney Princess: Royal Adventure This game is seriously lacking in the gameplay and story department. It seems to be directed to extremely young gamers, but misses the mark as the reading level needs to be very good to understand the quests. Additionally, the game is also far too slow and dull for most children to enjoy. Fans of the Royal Disney Princesses will be disappointed by the limited interactions with them.