Pinobee: Wings of Adventure

by Nintendo

Product Features

• A great premise
• multiple storylines
• eight endings
• 32-but graphics
• awesome power-ups

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005KAPU
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 5 x 1 inches ; 1.6 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: May 29, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,829 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Pinobee: Wings of Adventure's cute-as-a-button story line, in which a famous honeybee inventor creates a Pinocchio-like robot bee but gets kidnapped before he can install the heart, makes it stand out among other 2-D side-scrolling adventure games, but its gameplay never feels particularly innovative or surprising.

As mentioned, the heartless Pinobee must rescue his doddering inventor, Grampa Bee, through several stages of insect mayhem. He can jump, cling to walls, and has a "dash" ability that lets him briefly shoot forward through the air. The gameplay involves killing enemies, collecting power-ups and flowers for energy, dashing about, and navigating puzzles and traps. Pinobee has an energy meter that counts down as he moves around. Flowers replenish the meter, but if it reaches zero he becomes sluggish. Occasionally he'll run into a fairy that grants him new dash powers and a cricket that advances the story. There's also a diary you can read between levels that gives you a synopsis of Pinobee's search for his Grampa.

While the game itself features a lot of inventive takes on the 2-D adventure genre, they are, at best, merely recycled from other games. The diary is mostly useless, due to limp writing, which is probably itself the fault of a poor translation from the original Japanese text. But Pinobee's cute and inoffensive nature makes it perfect for kids. Also, Pinobee has the advantage of being one of the only nonsequel launch games for the Game Boy Advance. Out of all the 2-D side scrollers you'll find at launch time--and there are quite a few of them--this is the only one you haven't played before. --Andrew S. Bub

Pros:

• Interesting new ideas for the genre
• Great for kids
• Nice graphics

Cons:

• Bad writing
• Somewhat tired gameplay

Product Description

Pinobee: Wings of Adventure takes full advantage of Game Boy Advance's 32-bit color graphics. From Pinobee's fluid animation to the detailed environments he explores, it's obvious that a lot of spit and polish has been applied to this Pak. Pinobee screenshots may lead you to believe that this is a standard action platform game, but that is far from an accurate description. Pinobee can walk along the ground or shimmy up walls, but his main means of locomotion is dashing through the air. As he makes it deeper in his quest, Pinobee gains the ability to dash farther and farther through the air. Soon enough, he's spending more time hovering and dashing through the sky than on the ground. This unique play control system gives Pinobee a fresh feel.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pinobee: Wings of Adventure, June 24, 2001

By 

Lisa (Göteborg, Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pinobee: Wings of Adventure (Video Game)

Pinobee is a cute little bee with attitude. He's fun to play and easy to move around. At first I thought the game was no big deal but when I had finished it the first time I realized that that was only one of the endings. There are more! Now I have played it all twice and this time I made it to other levels that wasn't there the first time. And yet there are more endings to it. How many there are I don't know yet. This game is great as you can play it all over again and get a different story. At first I also thought it was easy but if you really want to beat the game it takes awhile and there's plenty to do. So it is not just for kids (actually, it might be too difficult for some), I'm 28 and I'm having a great time with it. So check it out, it is worth it. The more you play the more you get into it and you'll realize that you can play this game for a long time. And the graphics... Fantastic!!! If you like Rayman you'll like Pinobee too!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pinobee is a great game!, July 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Pinobee: Wings of Adventure (Video Game)

This was one of the first games I bought for my GBA and it was definitely a good choice. The graphics are great and I loved the way the game has different endings. I've already beat it once, but I always find myself picking it up again to see what new ending I get this time. It has excellent replay value, and it's so cute as well!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An interesting platformer with great graphics., November 13, 2002

By 

Carlos A Garcia II (Plymouth, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pinobee: Wings of Adventure (Video Game)

First off, let me state for the record that Pinobee is definitely aimed at children. When I say interesting, I use this term very loosely. Pinobee stars a bee who must journey through bug land in his many adventures. You start out as a little bee whose only ability is to jump on opponents, which is the typical method of attack in most platformers. As Pinobee progresses through the levels, he meets a fairy butterfly that gives him the ability to mid-air dash. Each dash is a short lived burst of speed. You can hover in the air shortly between dashes. The more dash power the fairy gives you, the more times you can dash, but you seemingly never achieve real flight. Learning to dash allows you to charge some enemies as another viable form of attacking.

Pinobee was graphically impressive. I'm having difficulty deciphering , but it looks like they used polygons for the game. There are just some characters that seem sprite based. For Pinobee himself, I am very impressed at the level of detail used. For the majority of the enemies, they seem to fall to a grainier resolution. This inconsistency can make it difficult to determine what you are really attacking. The backgrounds are well constructed, giving the feeling of being in a flowerbed as well as the caves in Phase 2. I do find it annoying that Pinobee looks at the screen with a balloon head effect every time you use his last Dash and when he gets hurt.

Pinobee seems to fall victim to the mindless, childish action game trap. Progression through levels is very linear, and levels do not seem to differ from the previous. It seems as if there was a predetermined template for levels and minor alterations were made to each. This enforces a strong sense of monotony. At the end of every level, you find Pinobee reading passages from a book. Though I have tried to make sense of them, they just do not seem to put together any real form of a story. Every time you encounter another non-hostile bug, Pinobee takes time to chat with them, using "Blah Blah Blah" as his choice of words. It would be so much nicer if Pinobee would obtain some new weapons or abilities from these seemingly pointless encounters...