Treasure Planet Review

'Disney really know their animation, but when it comes to games, they're incapable of making their character walk in a straight line.'

Movie license. Developer. Put them together and you get: a game. This game isn't as much a disappointment as other respected movie licenses, but it still has the same formula. A character wants you to collect 600 blue things to get 1 of the 50 parts that make up a key. There are 5 keys, each one opens a door. Move slowly and in linear motion towards the end of the level and get bombarded with text...

This game isn't as much hell as you'd expect it to be. It follows the story line closely (well actually it messes that up from the beginning, but that's probably to simplify the addition of new moves), it has all the characters and guess what, yep, tonnes of movie footage make up the cut-scenes. The cut-scenes actually make no sense at times, but luckily there aren't too many of those. To be honest, the game's storyline is pretty weak compared to movie but here it is anyway... Some boy finds a map, wants to get treasure, explores a bit, finds it, planet blows up, massive celebration.

The gameplay is actually better than what people would have expected. But all the excitement of the film is ruined by slow paced levels. Jim walks as if he's riding a donkey and he's as fiddly as hell. If you can get over the unearthly controls (which you won't) then you can take time to notice the increasingly linear motion of the levels. Every level is the same. There is no variety, none at all. Each level begins with you standing next to a character that you've probably never met before, babbling useless text at you. If it wasn't for the cut scenes then this wouldn't be Treasure Planet. You have to enter a building, cave etc. then progress by going through doors, some doors require a switch to be pressed, some require a key to be found. While this sounds easy, it is actually challenging. While most of the action is finding stuff, baddies that you're not allowed to attack or defend against will get in your way. In some levels, you must sneak past the guards with extreme precision or you'll get caught. Unfortunately, extreme precision is impossible in this game because Jim will purposefully go in the opposite direction, walk too fast or not move at all.

Don't bother looking for any exciting modes to find because it doesn't have any. Unless you consider 'new game', 'load game' and 'options' to be game modes, then there really isn't anything worth looking for. The game is password save (which we all hate), so you better write down your password (if you can be bothered with it). There aren't any unlockables and even if there were they'd probably all be 'collect 100 coins in 1 minute' or something. And collecting anything with Jim is impossible because his hair gets in the way of his eyes stopping you from moving.

The characters are ATROCIOUS. Rather than having the colour and smoothness that traditional 2D Gameboy games have, the characters look murky and blocky. Why? Because the developers have gone for a stupid isometric view. Don't be fooled into thinking this is a 3D game. This is less 3D than a piece of paper being trampled on by elephants. The '3D' aspect makes animation particularly bad, and lining up jumps is a nightmare. 1) Jim can hardly jump in the first place. 2) You can't tell if you're behind something 3) The scenery will put you to sleep. The scenery itself isn't too bad, but it's grey and brown making it extremely dull. If flat scenery and lumpy character sprites isn't enough to annoy you. Guess what they've done, they've made the cutscenes ropy and picked out the most boring ones. Who wants to see Jim getting caught by police when you can watch him do his sky thing...

No voice acting goes without saying for a GBA, but for Jim not to say anything at all is a disgrace. It's weird when he can't say 'huh' for a jump, or 'ow' when he gets hurt. He just stands their moving his crappy sprite up and down. In fact, now that I think about it. That's the only animation their is, up and down. Now they've gone out of their way to make it as linear as possible. The music is repetitive and crap, so you'll switch it off immediately.

That's it. A short review for a short lived game.

Best Bit:
Knowing that the off button is never too far away. You'll actually be bored as soon as you start, the pointless (and long) text intro hardly excites you, unless seeing a character's ugly face on the screen is in someway amusing.

Worst Bit:
The characters. Scrunched up paper on legs never does well for a character sprite, but mix that with bad controls and an isometric view then you'll have the most crappy character sprite in the world.

Graphics 61% 'Dull'
The character animation is rubbish is enough by itself. But when together with puke coloured backgrounds it really makes looking at the GBA an unpleasant experience. One thing to note, never play this on your GBA player.

Sound/Music 4% 'Words cannot describe it'
This is the lowest score I have ever given to music. But it is so hazardous to your ear drums that I need to warn you of it. The music is repetitive and light years away from the music in the film. Would you play Grand Theft Auto listening to nursery rhymes?

Gameplay 56% 'Linear'
With only one mode and little variety, you can already see what direction this game goes in. The path is straight, and even though it's '3D', that still doesn't stop it being as interesting as a paperclip.

Value 48% 'No Treasure'
I couldn't be bothered to finish it, so I wouldn't know. What I do know is you'll fall... zzz...

Overall Score: 42.25%.

Verdict:
If you needed this game then I would have said so at the start. But you don't, Treasure Planet clearly used up all it's gold, and it's filling in all the empty spaces with Bronze.

This review was added on 6th March 2005 by nGaming user ProReviewer.