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Dragon Tales Dragon Adventures

Score: 100%
ESRB: Everyone
Publisher: NewKidCo
Developer: Handheld Games
Media: Cart/1
Players: 1
Genre: Adventure


Graphics & Sound:

NewKidCo stands out among publishers for pushing a line that really is aimed to please the youngest group of gamers, and they have all the right elements in their games to appeal to this set of players. Game Boy is a great platform in the first place, given the popularity among a wide demographic group, but especially for kids. It's hard to find many young gamers who don't have some interest in Nintendo or haven't at least played with Game Boy or Nintendo64. For this reason, bringing what may be the best game I've played for the very, very young gamer to Game Boy Color is a great move. Dragon Tales Dragon Adventures has a solid PBS show behind it that many kids will know immediately, and the game well deserves the recognition.

When I think of what kids like to see in a game, I think of bright graphics, recognizable characters and interesting settings or activities. On the side of graphics, Dragon Adventures delivers with big areas full of neat stuff and characters that pop right off the little screen. Each location has tons of stuff to do, including climbing ladders, sliding down poles, bouncing up and down and riding sleds and carts. You can change characters in certain places, and play several children or as dragons. I'm guessing most kids will choose the dragons, but there are girl and boy characters on both the human and dragon side. The music is cute, and the whole storybook presentation of Dragon Adventures will keep kids glued to the screen. If there were ever a videogame equivalent of those Fisher-Price play sets, it would be this game. The sense of exploration and discovery fostered by playing any of the stories here is developed primarily from strong design and imagery that kids can really connect with and enjoy.


Gameplay:

Dragon Adventures contains 5 separate adventures, each one geared toward a different skill level. Dragonberry Days has you out collecting Dragonberries before the big festival. Bye-Bye Flutterby is again about collecting, but with the twist that the Flutterbies run scared from the dragons, so you need to play as the girl or boy if you want to find these escaped creatures for your friend Quetzal. 'Help I'm Lost' is a neat game where you get to help lost animals in Dragon Land find their friends. Puzzlewood is a two-step game where you need to find puzzle pieces to reveal doors, but then have to find keys to unlock the doors. In a similar fashion, Scaliwag is a three-step puzzle where you need to track down keys to unlock treasure chests to find map pieces that you can put together to uncover Captain Scaliwag's hidden treasure!

If this sounds like a lot of fun, believe me it is. Not just the storyline of each challenge, but the execution. In keeping with the great approach taken on this game, you don't just roll through each area completing objectives and gathering items. You have fun. You try different activities, change characters just for fun and do all the fun things you want. If you don't have all the items you need, a little fairy will remind you that you need to get them before moving on, but that's about the only 'restriction' you'll find in the game. A little counter at the bottom of the screen keeps track of the number of special items you've collected, and even though you'll always have one object that is most important, you can collect all kinds of other items to earn a special Dragon Badge after you complete a level. The open-ended gameplay rewards creativity, and the more advanced games like 'Help I'm Lost' and Scaliwag demand matching skills, logic and memory. In the early stories, kids get more instant gratification, but still use the matching skills and creative play needed to find every item in an area. Chances are, collecting the items may become a sidebar to just goofing around in these cool parts of Dragon Land.


Difficulty:

Each of the stories is rated for difficulty, so kids or parents can immediately tell what might be more demanding. My take on it after playing is that for the age range NewKidCo indicates, 5-8 years, all these stories should be doable by all but a few of the youngest gamers. And, for added benefit, there are 3 difficulty levels that can be set to customize the game for kids who may be having a hard time completing sections. On the first two settings, kids don't even have to find all the items or meet all the objectives, but can just explore and check out the game. The last setting requires that all objectives are met and makes finding items more difficult. So, even though the later stories are more involved, dialing down difficulty lets even first-time gamers appreciate all the fun in Dragon Adventures.

Game Mechanics:

The best children's game is probably the most transparent. For this level of gamer, being bogged down in complicated controls is just awful. The idea is to get in and experience the game without too much baggage. Dragon Adventures keeps things simple, and puts directional control on the D-Pad with the buttons to jump or flap the dragons' wings. Of course, when you talk to the Doodle Fairies, you can use the buttons to move the text along, especially if you're playing a second or third or fourth time. These stories are intended to be played in one sitting, so no password or battery save is presented. They all are relatively short, in keeping with their difficulty level, and the award of a Dragon Badge at the end is enough to give kids satisfaction and reward for playing. Reading through the stories behind the Dragon Adventures stories, kids will easily grasp what they need to do in each level, and those fairies are there to remind you if you forget.

It's refreshing to see a children's game so well designed. Dragon Adventures doesn't spend any time worrying about winning or losing, and is truly a piece of edutainment, rare for the console world. PC gamers and parents of gamers have had this kind of stuff forever, but kids aren't necessarily as interested in sitting in front of the computer for a long time as they are in cooling it somewhere comfortable with their handy GBC. Dragon Adventures is a great way to introduce a kid to gaming, and is especially nice for parents looking for non-violent games. As a form of play, it may not be up there with baseball or building forts, but Dragon Adventures goes a long way toward promoting productive gaming for kids under 10. I hope we'll see more of NewKidCo on GBA!


-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications
AKA Matt Paddock

GameBoy Color/Pocket Croc 2 GameBoy Color/Pocket E.T. Escape From Planet Earth

 
Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated