Tinker Bell (DS) (2008)
Developer: Genius Sonority

Review by Faididi and Co.

Playing as Wendy's attempted murderer would be way more entertaining

Story: Above Average

Genius Sonority's Tinker Bell is based on the Disney and Prana Studio movie of the same name, which itself is the first feature-length film in the Disney Fairies universe. Tinker Bell, the newest fairy at Pixie Hollow, must grow into her role as she helps the others in preparing for the changing of the seasons.

The story only loosely follows that of the movie, because this game covers all four seasons, not just spring, and our heroine does her work steadily, instead of causing and then recovering from humorous mayhem. The broader source material also allows for several more characters beyond those in the film to be featured here, and the plentiful dialogue is one of this game's stronger points.

Gameplay: Below Average

Tinker Bell is an adventure game that simulates the heroine's life and work at Pixie Hollow. She can fly around the place, talking to others and scavenging for crafting materials, and she can go through easy minigames to repair damaged items or to build new things for her fellow fairies. Tinker Bell's most prominent friends (Silvermist, Iridessa, Rosetta, Fawn, and for some reason Vidia) provide more minigames that award bonus crafting resources.

The opportunity to explore Pixie Hollow in depth and to interact with additional characters like Cera and Olwen is a major attraction for fans of Disney Fairies, even if Tinker Bell's other friends from the storybooks don't appear here. (Sorry; fans of Rani, Fira, Lily, Beck, Bess, Dulcie, Prilla, and Iris are out of luck.) After the first cycle of seasons, however, the game feels more like real-life work of the grinding sort than a fun fantasy adventure. Repeating the creating and the fixing of items to progress through the seasons is one thing, but the other fairies' extra tasks for Tinker Bell never stop, and many of them come with time limits.

Exacerbating things is the needlessly confusing level design. The areas are connected in a convoluted loop via inconsistent transition points, making Pixie Hollow difficult to navigate. Although the landscape display on the top screen indicates Tinker Bell's general location, it fails to give clear, easy directions to the next important target.

Controls: Poor

The touch screen-only controls seem fine initially, but after the first cycle of seasons, too many overlapping actions become added and begin to interfere with each other. This easily leads to our heroine stopping to use her self-illumination ability instead of petting nearby animals or making small basic movements, turning certain tasks into a frustrating mess. Furthermore, Vidia's minigame greatly favors left-handed Players, due to the nature of the scene scrolling, and there is no way to reverse the lateral orientation for right-handed Players.

Graphics: Excellent

On the bright side, Tinker Bell shows off gorgeous graphics. While several of the less prominent fairies use the same character models (but have different colors), the facial animations and the gestures for the conversation scenes look fantastic. The beautifully rendered scenery is all the easier to appreciate with the exceptional texturing work.

Audio: Above Average

The visuals are paired with gentle, magical audio effects, and that includes the fairies' characteristic flying noise, which is perfectly recreated here. The soft, pleasant music is original to this game, not taken from the movie, but too bad it's nothing memorable.

Overall: Below Average

Tinker Bell looks lovely for an adventure, but it plays awfully with its over-cluttered controls, sloppy area layouts, and unenjoyable crush of neverending timed extra tasks. If the movie is a predictable yet wholesome lesson about embracing one's own talents, then this game seems to be a cruel joke in preparing young Players for a future of menial, unhappy labor.