Video Games : The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Nintendo DS)

Rating: - Worth buying, but not without faults
I was apprehensive about playing this game. I am a huge Narnia fan so I had to buy it, but I was doubtful because I found the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe game pretty frustrating because I've never been able to finish it. I got stuck on the part involving fighting giants and despite what seems like hundreds of attempts, I gave up. That was months ago and the game is still unfinished and has long been abandoned. I was worried that the same thing would happen with this game. Luckily it didn't.

I've heard other negative criticisms about the first Narnia game so I'm going make comparisons between the two. There must be other people out there who were disappointed by the first game and are wondering whether to risk buying the second. This is for them.

POSITIVES (of the Prince Caspian game):

- Sticks to the story of the film pretty accurately and doesn't go off on too many irrelevent tangents. There are a few daft mini tasks (like rescuing squirrels, collecting cheese for a giant etc, which seems pretty irrelevent in my opinion during a war!!), but you don't have to do them to complete the game. I ignored most of mine.

- This game is mostly focused on the battles but the battle moves are more complex than in the first game (where you just pressed the attack button repeatedly and that's it). In this game you use the stylus for battling and there are various different moves for different characters. The battling is therefore more varied than in the first game.

- You get to play a wide range of characters. Not only Caspian and the Pevensies but Reepicheep, Glenstorm the centaur, Dr Cornelius, Trufflehunter, Trumpkin, Nikabrik, Wimbleweather the giant, the minotaur, and various others.

- Very regular save points- whenever you move onto a new map.

- It's pretty satisfying when your characters move up levels or get upgrades, and you improve at your battling skills.

- You collect items along the way which you an use as bonus moves during the battles- for instance, ice shards falling on the enemy. These are a cool idea and there a lot of different ones you can try. I should add though, that you don't really need them. I hardly used mine (apart from apples for health) and still completed it easily. In fact I was deliberately saving all of mine for until the game got harder and I would need to use them, but it never did reach that level of difficulty!

NEGATIVES

- Too short, I think I completed it in about 4 hours, mainly because...

- It's a bit too easy. It feels like it's all given to you on a plate. I would have liked it to be a bit more challenging along the way, I never actually got a game over at all until Peter and Miraz's duel at the end (and even then I only had to replay it once to win).

- A bit too repetitive and too much emphasis on the battling. I think some puzzles along the way would have been beneficial and made it more varied. How to cross a river or something like that.

- The graphics are rubbish. In this respect, the first game is actually superior- the characters really looked so much like their human counterparts. In the PC game they don't resemble them at all! They all look ugly and elderly, would you believe! I bet the Narnia actors weren't very flattered by these graphics.

- The ending was an anticlimax- Peter and Miraz's duel is actually the final of the game. In the movie and book there's a big battle after the duel and I was looking forward to that in the game- but it never happened. Pffft.

In conclusion, this game is not perfect. It's worth buying if you like Narnia and easy action games (it's quite similar to the Pirates of the Caribbean- At World's End game in its battling methods with the stylus) but I wouldn't spend £25 on it if I were you. It's just not long enough to be worth the money. It's worth £10-15 though.

By the way, don't view the images or the video clip on this Amazon page. These clips and pictures are from the Prince Caspian games for other games consoles and it's misleading for Amazon to put them here. The DS game does NOT look like this.

I think kids would probably like it more than I did (I am 22). It might be at the right level of difficulty for a younger audience.

7/10

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Rating: - Good buy
Prince Caspian is one of the best adventure games ever. Some levels are repetative but not completly identical (hense only 4 stars), other than that I think it is brilliant