Customer Reviews

Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey

5 star:		(72)
4 star:		(43)
3 star:		(42)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

I have a kindergardener at home you loves just about anything with disney princesses. This is her absolutely her favorite. This game is clearly directed at little girls and hit the mark dead on. You play a s princess in training and you wave the Wii mote as a wand. My daughter loved the fact she can perform magic to help out her favorite princesses. As a parent, I play along side her and my joy comes her enjoyment of the game. If you have a little princess at home then it will be hard to disappoint with this game.

Granted, it's not the longest or most challenging/complex of Wii games. Honestly, that's part of what makes it perfect for our 5yo. She doesn't get overly frustrated feeling like she's not making any progress, and it's divided very nicely into chapters so as to allow for bits of game play in each session (she's 5, we don't allow her to play for 1/2-day marathons). She has just mastered it once, but is already excited to play it over again. I'm confident that this time will go even more quickly, as she's improved her skills - that's *my* favorite part of the game, it has improved her skills with the Wiimote/nunchuck enough that I'm confident that other games will now be less frustrating for her too. She's also figured out a bit more about how to navigate in Wii worlds, so her understanding of the games in general has increased.

For us, that skill improvment, combined with her glee at interacting with the princesses, was worth the price.

I bought this game for my 7 and 8 year old daughters, who love the Disney Princesses.
Neither of them are expert video game players and generally prefer sim-like games such as Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing. They loved the game play of Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey but it was over within 2 1/2 hours...and part of that included customizing their character before the game started.
For $20 it might have seemed like a good purchase, but at twice the price it is a disappointment.
Essentially, it would be a good game for very young children who have short attention spans, but any older than 5 or 6 and it's just not worth it.
Hopefully Disney Friends for DS will provide more replay value.

Summary:
Great for younger kids (ages 4-5). Older kids will find it too simple. Adults will find it buggy, overpriced and frustrating.

With a brand new Wii in the house and a princess-mad 4 year old it seemed like a perfect match. And it was; she loved the game. But it could have been so much more.

The game is made up of four "worlds" each with three "chapters". The difficulty and length of each chapter varies but each one takes 10-30 minutes to complete. You could easily complete the game in a couple of hours if you tried so we rationed our daughter to one chapter at bedtime.

Play requires the nunchuk - you move around with it and press the Z button to interact, and that's difficult for a 4 year old to grasp. Fortunately the "cross" also moves the character, so the parent can hold the nunchuk and help the player move around.

Similarly the two player mode requires a second nunchuk. Be warned that if you try to start a two player game without a second nunchuk you'll end up having to reset the game. Bug.

You start by customising your character. That's rather like building a Mii. You can go back and change your outfit during the game, but the path back to the changing room isn't obvious to a kid (it's the other staircase).

Having done that there's a simple training exercise to show you how to use the remote. Since it's supposed to be a magic wand there are three ways to wave it and cast different spells. This is the only part of the gameplay that makes use of the Wii's unique capabilities.

In each chapter there are objectives to accomplish which involve playing mini-games. The mini-games are weak and typically involve following a sequence or moving a container to catch falling objects. They are pure padding, and my daughter found some of them frustrating.

In two player mode you run around together casting spells but players complete each of the mini-games alone.

Within the chapter you move around and are guided by gemstones that you collect. The game keeps a total, but when you get to 999 it stops counting. You can also get gems by opening locked chests and helping people in the game, but since the gems mean nothing there's very little point. Similarly you can jump by pressing the A button, but there's no actual need to do this at any point in the game other than to reach locked chests.

Once all the chapters are completed there'a a final scene and the credits roll. Beyond the credits there's an extra "bonus" chapter, but it's the shortest of all and not worth the expectation. You can also revisit the four worlds, but there's nothing to do.

Clearly Papaya have built a game engine that they plan to put to much better use in future games. You can "interact" with characters that you meet by pressing the Z button, but in this game they just speak a line of dialog; they serve no useful purpose.

They do need to work on the graphics engine; there's some nasty jagged lines in many scenes.

Overall I'm resaonably happy with the purchase. It's kept my daughter occupied and having completed it she wants to play it again. Clearly it's overpriced; the PC version is only $20, has bugs and could have been a lot better. But she's only 4; she doesn't know that and since she's happy with it, well, that's the main thing.

I had to give this title some credit, I am a father of two girls, a 5 year old with whom I play wii with and share many special moments with. This game's wii remote features are really great, it works like a magic wand for her, its the best two player game out there so you can play along side her and help her out. The levels are all basically easy for them, and very complete, she gets to play scenes or character from all the mayor disney princess movies. They are very entertaining and educational, and the second best thing about the game is that she can customize her character and change her hair, color, dress, accesories, etc, I think she enjoys this more than the regular game play. The only drawback of this game is that its too short and easy to finish thru and the bad guys slightly scared her even though in my opinion they are inoffensive and even cute.

This game is fun and my 5 year old loved that she got to customize her character, my beef is the Bogs. I really don't see why they had to put such a scary character in a game they KNEW was going to have its target audience as 4-6 year olds (they say it's for 8-12 year olds, but not too many girls that age are still into princesses). The game has some cute mini games, and they could have added more of those and it would have been fine, they did not need the Bogs. (Oh, and the Bogs look kind of like that little goblin in the movie Cats Eye if that gives you any indication...) as the levels get more difficult, the amount of Bogs surrounding you goes up, and they get harder to vanquish (really hard, you have to swing the remote rapidly up and down for a long time to get them to disappear)..... also they slow down time and surround you in this green cloud. Even to me it's a little spooky. Yes, the princesses don't die, but try telling that to a hysterical 5 year old who sees her alter ego being attacked and her life line shooting down. This game scares my daughter so much she refuses to play it anymore, and when we convince her to give it another try, and stand right next to her..... within a minute she is sobbing again, so we've given up. We should have rented it first, and now we've learned our lesson, we rent every game before we buy so this doesn't happen again. Just know, if the Bogs make your child uneasy in the easier levels..... they just get scarier.

I bought this for my daughter for her 5th birthday. I also bought her Catz2 for Christmas. Catz2 was unplayable for her (despite being a fairly easy game... it also requires reading). This one started out as being hard for her to control, but she started to actually grasp it and after completing a few levels, she can actually hold both the wiimote and nunchuck herself. She still has a bit of trouble maneuvering the girl with the nunchuck's joystick, but overall she can do it on her own.

She finds all bad guys to be scary... the bogs in this game she freaks out a little and they scare her, but they've been easy enough for her to defeat (no dying) and she doesn't have to aim, just wave the wiimote up and down.

She really loves the game though, and is happy to go into the levels (without the scary bogs) and wander around.

The bad part about the game is that whenever you need to point the wiimote at the screen, the pointer is VERY finicky and it's difficult to do, even for an adult. You would think for $40 for a game, that Disney could release a game without a bug like that.

Also, once you go back IN a level after you've done all 3 "chapters", you can't get out again without going to the main menu and choosing "return to castle".

Collecting Gems means nothing, and the counter stops at 999. It would've been nice if there was a Princess Store or something you could buy outfits with or something.

I think after playing this game, that she'll have a better grasp about the Wii's controls and will be able to play other games without as much frustration. Too bad this one was expensive though, I'm not sure it's worth the money for a learning kids game without a ton of replay value.

We bought this game for $19.99 and for what we paid, we're pleased with the purchase. Our daughter is 5 and wanted to play more games than Wii Sports or Wii Play, but really doesn't have the coordination and control to play the more advanced games with us. This game was a good compromise. She loves the fact that she got to design her own character to 'help' the princesses, choosing her physical features, clothes and jewelry. Visiting the princesses and 'talking' with them also gave a thrill, (Ariel & Jasmine are the 'Easy' levels, Cinderella, 'Medium', and Snow White, 'Hard'). She also enjoyed completing each chapter and being able to see how her progress evolved. We liked the fact that she didn't get frustrated with the game, and we could see her Wiimote skills improve as she progressed through the game.

Pros-
-You meet and help Ariel, Jasmine, Cinderella and Snow White, good amount of Princess interaction.
-Storyline is explained verbally, your child doesn't have to be a great reader to follow the story and directions.
-Using Wiimote as a magic wand
-Gem trails are used to show where to go next, and the helper pixie reminds you where you need to be heading to complete the next task.
-Mini-games in each chapter emphasize following directions, pattern recognition, and use of both nunchuck and Wiimote.
-After game is complete, you can go back and replay mini-games if desired.

Cons-
-Game is rather short. Playing and completing 1 chapter a day will finish the entire game in 2 weeks.
-Bogs are a little scary at first, and the head bad lady 'Zara' you meet after completing all 4 princesses could be scary for some children.
-Gems have no monetary value, it would have been nice to actually be able to spend them to accessorize your child's character.
-Rather slow loading times between scenes, could be frustrating for child.
-Once game has been completed, you unlock 1 mini-game with Belle, more games or another task to complete would have been better.

Our daughter is already asking to design another character and replay the game, so we consider the $19.99 well spent. Playing the game definitely helped with her hand-eye coordination and Wiimote control and she didn't notice many of the things we considered cons. I'd definitely recommend it as a good beginning game for a Disney Princess fan.

I purchased this game as a gift for my daughter. I'm a long time gamer myself and I have found this to be one of the most well-crafted children's games available. I even went out of my way to e-mail the game developer and let them know what a great experience our family had with it.

There are more than a few things the developer did right that make this game easily accessible to the children (mine is 4): careful placement of the gems in the environment lead to important objectives and location, forgiving Wii controls for the wand, enemies that go down without too much of a fight, goals that are verbally spoken and gently repeated at certain intervals to keep the player focused.. the list goes on.

My daughter had an amazing time with game, and while I was always there to help coach, she was challenged without being frustrated. The only real disappointment to her came when the game ended and the 'bonus' area was simply a brief mini-game in Belle's Ballroom; she had really hoped to play a full level as Belle.

I really can't recommend this game enough for your young girl, especially if she is a fan of the Princesses. She may require a little guidance at first, but the format of the game is easily grasped. The game will surely help build her confidence and puzzle solving abilities as well as encourage exploration of a 3-D environment, one of the things I think my daughter finds most challenging with modern games (3-D navigation, I mean.) I don't regret the full price purchase one bit, if you can get it for less a purchase is a no-brainer.

Have fun!

First of all, I cannot believe that this game has so few reviews. So, here I go. My four year old loves this game. As mentioned by others, this game does have a small learning curve, but overall my 4 1/2 year old did fine. Her older sisters helped her the first few plays and now she is fine.

My seven year old likes this game as well because she is into princesses and Disney. I would recommend this game for 4 to 6 year old girls in general.

My only complaint is that in two-player mode only ONE princess gets to wear the crown. This causes unnecessary envy and arguing, but it is also an opportunity to teach 'sharing' and 'taking-turns.' Overall, this is a good game for this age-group.