The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is the latest in movie games to come out on the handheld front. The movie though is (I’m hoping) a faithful recreation of the classic C.S. Lewis fantasy novel baring the same name. While chronicled as the first in the time line of stories within the realm of Narnia, this game and movie are based on a book that actually fell toward the center of a seven book series by the writer. In The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe the story opens upon a time during the early part of the 20th century just after World War II. The Pevensies, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, have been orphaned in England due to the war and have been moved into a family foster home. Early in their stay at the Professor’s home they set out on a game of hide-and-seek to pass the time. Lucy though while attempting to hide stumbles upon a very beautifully wood-carved, large wardrobe. Deciding to step inside the wardrobe sets her off into an entire new realm of hiding, an entire new world known as Narnia. All, though is not right in the land of Narnia as young Lucy soon finds out.

Shortly after entering this icy winter wonderland, she discovers none other than Mr. Tumnus the Faun who brings her home as a supposed kidnapping, but really refreshes her while telling her a story. Afterwards she returns home and tells of the wondrous place of Narnia to her brother Edmund who just happened to enter the room. He, not believing a word of it, enters and gets separated from Lucy, but discovers the White Witch who befriends him wanting to meet his family. So he returns back to the lamp post portal to get his family and start the adventure in Narnia.

Will the game ultimately deliver a package worth buying or will it be another in a long line of sub-par movie titles made to cash in for a quick lousy buck better left to the White Witch to put on ice for all time?

Audio and Visuals:
As one would hope for an epic tale which is what The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is, the player would humbly hope for a well assembled package to compliment people’s creative imaginations inspired by the book and movie. Well be rest assured that the package given to the gamer in this title does deliver with a standard that should be expected of the Nintendo DS and more from your typical movie based game. Within the audio package given to the player there is an excellent balance of both music and sound effects complimenting the environments of the game.

Depending if you are in an open field, a frozen land, night or day, or perhaps within a nasty dungeon each area will have a nice distinct melody that fits the tone of the area. The music has some very distinct instrumentation to it so it doesn’t come off as your typical mediocre quality riff one would expect from an average movie based game. As I had stated though the sound effects were just in line with complimenting the musical scoring of the game. Each and every effect you can watch in this game, whether it is your team, your potential animal partner, the enemy, or even just some random thing considered a background object, they all bare sound effects. The greatness of the sound effect package though is that each thing you come across has a distinct sound so it’s not another case of someone busting out “Generic Audio Samples CD Vol.1” by any means. Whether it is the clash of any of your swords, daggers, arrows, enemy clubs, axes, magic spells, or even the cracking of a warm fire or a bird taking flight, it is all there and very crisp and distinguished.

As well as the audio package delivers a good one-two punch for the gamer lost in the world of Narnia, the graphical engine compliments it quite well in pretty much every way. Visually the game is an interesting melding of both the worlds of 2D and 3D, which creates a very pleasing environment for the game player to explore. The land of Narnia itself is portrayed in an overhead view with some very high color and detailed environments which have some amazing attention to detail. Each of the outdoor realms offered in the game actually have four entirely different graphic sets to compliment the shift of time from night to day, and from green spring environment and a cold white winter which occurs within the game.

Whether you’re in an icy wasteland or a green habitat, you will find that the detailing comes down to the smallest pixel to give even the leaves on trees a distinct non-tiled appearance. Aside from the combat screen though, the lower touch panel also has a fully 2D sprite setup for its menus that does not disappoint. The touch panel has the ability to display the children’s faces, gear, and stats, two levels of a map of the land, and various other menus as well. All have a similar detailing to them aside from the map which was kept in a brown parchment and ink type style to match with the sketches found in the original C.S. Lewis book. Complimenting the 2D though is a very well 3D engine that covers all the in game characters, enemies, and beasts you can converse with on the top panel. The detail levels are quite high to where you can make out the rings in Peter and Edmund’s chain mail armor, or when talking to Aslan the lion you can see high detail with his fur texture, teeth, eyes, and so on which really makes the game stand out.

These standards are kept up throughout the entire game no matter if you got just the four siblings on screen, or all of them and a pack of six or more enemies. The only fundamental problem with the engine is when you get like six enemies on screen you can see and feel the game slow down a bit as it taxes the DS a bit. I can’t say if it needed more development time or that’s the best they could do, but seeing other games out there I think it could have been remedied.


Gameplay:
Throughout the history of video games one thing has been a glaring issue with titles that are spawned off of the silver screen, and that is even if the developer bothers to do some decent visuals and audio, the gameplay never fails to fall insultingly flat. I’m pleased to say though that the overall gameplay package of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is anything but flat, stale, or boring. The best way to simply describe the gameplay style of the game is to compare the style to two other popular titles of the past which are Diablo from the PC and Baldur’s Gate from all three of this generations consoles. Unlike those two masterpieces of gaming, this title can allow up to a four player locally played game where each friend can play one of the children in the story! The title at its roots is a typical hack and slash action game with some RPG elements thrown into the mix to make it much more interesting. As you combat enemies you will rack up experience and three types of currency of which one, the ice shards, can be used to buy better gear, but all three can be used to upgrade your stats. If you can find the friendly squirrel shops throughout Narnia, you can cash in your ice shards for better weapons, armor, and a lifebar refilling food item. But also in less found places are a well and a statue of which can use all three types of currency. For a price, you can infuse your weapon and armor with a stat boosting ability which can really turn the tide in battle.

Sadly though, this is one huge place where the game drags miserably as it feels like Uncle Scrooge was the designer of the cash drop system as you randomly can get money in increments of 1, 3, or 5 shards, and with prices coming nearly to $8000 to buy all four kids best gear it can take hours of monotonous play to get what you literally need to survive in the final battles of the game. You can get a simple armor or attack booster, or perhaps you can get an ability which has a smaller percentage of happening, but when it does it will either stun or damage your enemies in your radius inside a nice lightshow polygonal vortex.

As you work your way through the opening gates of Narnia and play throughout the story the gamer will be greatly rewarded with the fact the game makers actually bothered to stick with the book instead of getting insipidly over creative. If you are familiar with the story of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe you know you have to work towards meeting up with Aslan, the true King of Narnia, gaining some abilities, gaining some trust and friends, raising an army, and taking down the White Witch. Thankfully the primary story of the game does stick to these roots, but in order to keep the flow of the game going there are many sub-quests you can optionally do when a creature of the forest asks you to do so. Depending on your responses though (of which you’ll have up to three choices) if you answer correctly once those tasks are done you will gain their trust and can recruit them to join your party in the fight immediately.

The problem is that some of the sub-quests are highly obtuse and you may never stumble on them at all or just quite by accident sadly, but for the most part they’re doable, fun, and rewarding. It is a really nice touch the writers decided to have you try and earn trust instead of just dishing it out as cheap plot advancement. Each of your four characters has their own distinct abilities, sub-abilities, and even special techniques to call their own in this game as well. You have two sword fighters, a range archer, and a healer/summoner who can also attack if needed up close with a fast attack dagger. All those things aside though, depending on those sub-quests you finish, you can get special abilities that can boost stats, bring in back up assistance, and transport you across the land and more.

The level of possibilities in the game that first time through can almost seem quite limitless while sticking well to the book. The only real downside to the following of the book and the gameplay in general sadly is a somewhat weak battle towards the end of the game with the Witch as it had to stay true to the story giving Aslan the final blow which almost feels like a robbery, but it is a necessary evil.

Final Word:
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is an astoundingly well assembled title for the Nintendo DS. Simply put I would have to say that nearly once in a generation a movie title will come along that actually is a pleasure to play as everything comes together just right. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe literally is one of those events for the most part. The game gets its frame rate issues with a lot going on screen, the cash drop amounts are comedic, some sub-quests are just badly made, and certain things don’t reward so well. But to that I really have to say in the grand picture, “So what!” The title overall is a pleasure to play not just because it for the most part accurately sticks well to the book. To those not even familiar with it the entire gameplay engine from all that is offered in abilities and decisions makes the game a truly rewarding adventure you would be hard pressed to greatly dislike aside from being no fan of the genre. I didn’t think I would probably ever finding myself recommending a movie game, especially a handheld created title, but this one I do.

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