Disney’s Cinderella: Magical Dreams – GBA – Review

Disney’s Cinderella
Magical Dreams is
based on the famous Disney movie, with much of the game-play taken straight
from scenes from the movie. Players will help Cinderella finish her chores and
practice her dance moves at the ball, guide the Fairy Godmother as she
transforms objects into magical creations for Cinderella, and lead Gus and Jaq
past Lucifer the cat as they gather items and manipulate levers.

This is a simple
side-scrolling platform game for the most part, with a few arcade levels
featuring the Fairy Godmother shooting colored bubbles, and Cinderella and the
Prince moving around the dance floor. In Cinderella’s levels, gamers will move
Cinderella in side-scrolling environments which are outdoors in either
farmyards, gardens or the woods. She has to avoid hazards which are in the
guise of cute little critters, while she collects things like tiaras and
flowers. Her levels are very simplistic, and mostly just involve avoiding the
moving animals. For a change of pace, the Fairy Godmother shoots colored
bubbles and then transforms ordinary items into the famous coach and horses
ensemble from the movie. These levels are cute, as when she misses, she gets
sprayed with water and uses her wand to scrape it off her clothes.

Gus and Jaq have the most
complicated levels, and have to jump around on platforms as they avoid rolling
objects, hot steam, and Lucifer. These are the most satisfying levels in the
game, as they involve more critical thinking. Often, it’s not obvious how to
get Gus and Jaq from one platform to another, and players have to plan their
moves. The Prince and Cinderella have a lot of chemistry on the dance floor,
but still need some help negotiating the latest dance moves.  Players will
need to use the directional pad to match the correct direction as indicated on
the screen for a cool dance move, while using the directional pad also to move
the dancers and keep them in the spotlight, as it moves around the dance
floor.

The levels are short and
mostly easy, but offer good variety and interesting game-play for young
children.  The differing levels all offer varying difficulty levels, as
Cinderella’s action levels are much easier than Gus and Jaq. The Fairy
Godmother and Cinderella’s dancing are arcade oriented, and fall somewhere in
the middle in terms of difficulty.

However, there are a few
design glitches which detract from the overall gaming experience. This game
has a really bad collision detection system, and Cinderella and Gus and Jaq
just can’t jump worth a hoot. In Cinderella’s and Gus and Jaq’s levels, they
don’t have to actually touch the hazards to be hurt, they only have to stand
close to them.  This becomes very annoying, as not only will these guys get
hurt by getting close to objects, their bad jumping barely clears many
objects, which means they get hurt most of the time they jump over things.
It’s a shame that this type of sloppy programming prevents this game from
being the really fun game it could have been.

Despite the bad controls,
this is still a fairly decent game for young kids who have a high tolerance
for frustration. For the easily frustrated, though, parents may want to avoid
the possible meltdown from their children whose character has just expired,
and so will have to start the level over again.

Review Scoring Details for Disney’s Cinderella: Magical Dreams

Gameplay: 6
The game-play
potentially could have been very good, if it wasn’t for the clumsy design.
The bad collision is just bad programming, and should not have made it to the
finished product. Cinderella and the mice don’t even have to actually touch
the hazard, to get hit. Combine this with awkward jumping, and the levels’ fun
factor quickly decreases.

Graphics: 7
The graphics are
well done, and the movie clips are fun to watch.

Sound: 6
The sound is
really strange, in that it doesn’t seem to be the same musical score from the
movie (admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve watched the movie).  It’s also
not that good when considered separately from the movie Cinderella.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
The game isn’t
too difficult on the whole, but the bad jumping and collision detection makes
it harder.

Concept: 6
It’s very similar
to most “girl-games” for young children.  There is a good variety and
challenge in some of the levels, but there should also have been a few
mini-games for even more variety.  The presentation is not what it could have
been, either.

Overall: 6
This could have
been a very good game, but it just falls down in the execution. More time and
effort should have been taken in the characters’ movement around the levels.
As it is, this is just a mediocre game.