Winx Club: Mission Enchantrix
Score: 85% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Konami Developer: Powerhead Games Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Action/ Family
Graphics & Sound: I can honestly say that I have watched the Winx Club once before a few years back, so at least I know who the main characters are and what they're usually like. I cannot promise to be an expert on them though, so please forgive me if I fail to mention something from the show that might link to the game. As far as I remember, the game does a very good job of making the characters look and act like you're used to in the show. I really appreciate it when games remain consistent with the shows that they are licensed from. In the Winx Club: Mission Enchantix, not only do the characters look like the show, but the cutscenes look like they have been taken directly from it. Unfortunately, I don't know my Winx Club well enough to tell you if that is the case or not, but it really looks like it is. During gameplay, your characters don't speak. They do make a grunting noise when they take damage, though. During the cutscenes however, you get full vocals with the videos. There is generic background music during the game too. You don't have to keep the volume up to listen to it, however. Unless you just can't see when you're getting hit, you don't need the sound for anything except the cutscenes.
Gameplay: There are several different things for you to choose to play in Winx Club: Mission Enchantix. The first thing that I started with (simply because that's where I almost always start in a game) was Story Mode. The first thing you do is choose how difficult you want the game to be. After that, in Story Mode, you will follow your favorite Winx Club girls, Bloom, Flora, Stella, Musa, Tecna, and Layla. While this might sound like a day at the beach, these girls are about to have some serious work to do. It all starts out easily enough. Bloom is dreaming about a mysterious man. This level is basically a very easy board where you'll learn the controls and get used to playing the game. After you complete this, you'll get your choice of which Winx Club member to help next. It really doesn't matter which one you choose since you will get to all of them eventually. These are all tutorial levels. You must beat them before you get to the main story. Each area in the main story has several levels to it and most of them end with a boss level. Each level (and the tutorial levels as well) has 50 tokens that you can collect as you go along. At the beginning, these are pretty easy to find, but the further you get in the game, they become increasingly more difficult to locate. You can always replay a level if you missed some tokens. These token unlock things like clothing, music, and movies. Eventually you will complete the Story Mode. When you get bored of Story Mode or just need something different for a while, you can choose to play in the Arcade. Each of the six Winx Club gals has her own mini-game for you to play. There is a very wide variety of mini-games, so you'll probably like some and hate some. Personally, I thought that it was a good selection of games. The other two selections that you can choose from the Main Menu are A/V Club and Magic Closet. The A/V Club is where you go to view all of the views and music that you have unlocked by collecting tokens. In the Magic Closet, you can dress the Winx Club members up in the various outfits that you have unlocked with tokens. This does not change how they look in the game, though. It is only for you to view inside the closet. When you are inside the closet, be aware that you will have to hold your DS sideways. It flips the screen so that you can see the full outfit easier.
Difficulty: Winx Club: Mission Enchantix provides different difficulty levels so that you can make your game as easy or as difficult as you want it to be. Playing on Easy, you can run through Story Mode very quickly. I made it to the boss at the end of level six before I died and I wasn't being careful at all. The game provides quite a bit of extra health and mana lying around the boards, so even if you do get hit, you can heal yourself quickly. The further you get in the game, the more spells and power you get. Of course, the enemies get harder as well, so the game stays balanced. The one thing I didn't like is that you can't change the difficulty level without starting a new game. When you start a new game, you lose all of the things that you have unlocked. The mini-games could prove to be difficult depending on whether or not you're good at that type of game. Luckily, you can try them as many times as you want until you get the hang of it.
Game Mechanics: Winx Club: Mission Enchantix is relatively easy to get the hang of. You use the D-pad to move the character around. When you move backwards though, your character does not change direction. This does make it much easier to shoot your enemies while retreating, but it takes a little bit of time to get used to. When you want to face the opposite direction, you just press the shoulder button on the side that you want to face, so you use (L) to face left and (R) to face right. A big part of the game is fighting enemies. I used the basic magic beam the most simply because it was easiest. The (B) button casts magic beam, which is basically a normal shot. You can hold down the (B) button to continually shoot it. If you hold down the (A) button for two seconds, you can then release it to shoot a really powerful beam. The (Y) button will cast your character's normal magic spell. Each character has a different spell, so you'll have to continually switch back and forth between them to get past certain areas with the right spell. After you've passed certain levels, your characters will gain new, more powerful abilities. You can call these powers with the (X) button. Once your characters get these new "Enchantix" abilities, they also get cooler looking clothes too. The game will autosave for you after you finish up each level. Since the levels aren't very long, this is plenty often enough. Winx Club: Mission Enchantix wasn't a game that I requested, but I'm glad that I ended up with it. So many games for girls lately have been fashion and makeup only. This one proves that you can put the adventure in with the fashion and still make it a lot of fun.
-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl
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