Even though you can switch between the four characters, you're never in control of more than one child at a
time. This means as one person takes the
lead the rest will hang out behind you, occasionally doing something useful
like helping you fight. But maybe that's giving them too much credit; I found that for
much of the game the characters you're
not playing as just stand back watching you fight. There are plenty of things they could be
doing, from using their arrows to take out enemies in the distance or maybe
going as far as to heal you, but in order to perform these tasks you'll have to switch characters and do the moves
manually. On the bright side the
children you are not playing against generally don't
take any damage, so you'll only need
to worry about your health during those tense battles.
This journey through Narnia features fifteen different
levels which may sound impressive until you actually see how short they are. Some levels are no more than a few minutes
long, and most are nothing more than a few different "rooms" where
you do battle and solve puzzles.
Ultimately this isn't a huge
problem, but considering that more than half of the game is all set in the middle
of a snow covered forest it may see like you're
just playing the same level over and over.
To make matters worse, most of the game isn't
very hard; it's the type of
adventure that always tells you where to go and will essentially solve the
puzzles for you. In the final few levels
the developers ramp up the difficulty (by throwing dozens of enemies at you),
it's nice to have a challenge, but
it left me wondering why more time wasn't
spend on balancing it out.
To the game's credit, each of the levels open and close with
full motion video segments that are pulled straight from the recently-released
theatrical film. These aren't long
segments (generally only lasting a minute or two), but they do a good job of
filling in the story and motives for each level. My only complaint about these video segments
is the way they transition from the FMV to the polygonal characters. The video itself looks so good that when it
shifts to the in-game graphics it can be a little jarring, especially when you
see how plain some of the actors end up looking.
The graphics in Narnia are good, but nothing you haven't
seen before. You're fighting the same
type of fantasy villains you've seen in countless other adventure games, none
of them straying too far from the traditional look. The backgrounds are good, but with so many
snow levels it's hard not to wonder if they are just repeating
backgrounds. The animation is equally
unspectacular; it's all pretty basic stuff you've seen in every other game of
its type. That doesn't mean it's bad,
it's just not the highlight of this experience.
Perhaps the biggest problem with Narnia's presentation is
the use of fixed camera angles. Early on
this camera system may make sense, especially if you don't know where to go and
what to do … but as you start meeting up with enemies with long-range attacks
you'll find yourself constantly being bombarded by objects coming from
off-screen. Although they are few and
far between, the off-screen enemies are a real problem and make a few moments a
lot more frustrating than they need to be.
Thankfully the audio in Narnia is a lot more impressive than
the visuals. The score sounds like it
comes straight from the movie and fits the scenes nicely. The voice acting is also quite good, both in
the FMV sequences and the in-game stuff as well. Unfortunately, the sound effects are pretty
underwhelming, especially since they tend to recycle the same sound effect time
after time. Thankfully you'll be too
busy fighting through hordes of enemies to concentrate on the game's sound
effects.
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