Nov 21 2008
Dora Saves the Snow Princess for Nintendo DS Review
Dora Saves the Snow Princess is a special episode (and DVD and Video Game) of Nickelodeon’s Nick Jr. Dora the Explorer television show. I have not seen that episode, yet, so I am not sure how well the game follows the plot, but I imagine it definitely uses aspects of the episode’s plot.
The game has some positives, but they do not make up for the big negative. The main positive is that it is an easy game for young kids to play. Also, the graphics are pretty good. Another positive is that the game gives the instructions verbally, which is important since most that this game will appeal to probably cannot read very well. The game is also nice in that it uses the microphone, touch screen, and button controls in easy to use ways that do not overwhelm the player. Lastly, it does promote the basic concepts like in the show and in fact plays out a lot like the show, except when Dora invites you to help you really are helping her.
Now the game may sound great and everything from the above paragraph (at least for a Dora fan). There is, however, a major negative. The gameplay depth is extremely limited. It took me less than 20 minutes to play through everything and even a young kid will probably exhaust the depth in an hour. Bottom line is it may be fun for a kid to try once as a rental, but I highly doubt anyone would find it worth purchasing because of the very poor game depth.
