Justice Newell

My overall impression of this game is mixed. While I like the game's score and tone - both match the film very well - the level design is unintuitively created. What comes to mind to best get at what I mean is the graveyard level at the beginning of the game. Towards the middle of the level, the player is tasked with finding the hanged men that ran away from the hanging tree. After the player talks with the tree, the player is greeted by a cutscene and a subsequent boss battle with one of the ghoul kids. After defeating the skeletons, a new area is shown, encouraging the player to explore it. Upon exploring the new area, the player realizes that he or she can't do anything there yet, and after checking the map (which pretty much just tells you what to do) the player realizes that they actually have to backtrack to the beginning of the level to find Zero, the ghost puppy. I do not think that having the map is enough to make the level design okay. The map is always helpful, as it always tells you what to do, but it's more of an exception to the gameplay when you don't use it after doing something. Perhaps if the developers made the boss battle near Zero's grave, then it would have made more sense. Again, this is just one example of this issue in the game. It may seem like I'm making this into too big of an issue, but in a game where you are graded by how quickly you complete missions, intuitive level design is paramount. In terms of gameplay, it is a hack and slash game. Given that, one can assume that it isn't very complex. That is certainly true. The player basically has two attacks and a jump that would have been better as a dodge. Hack and slash games aren't really my thing, but if you enjoy them, this is a fairly good example of one. During boss fights, the player can fill up a music gauge that unleashes a strong attack against the boss. The attack gets stronger as the player does better in the rhythm minigame that interrupts the flow of battle. Ultimately, this is a fun game if you're in the mood to play games like Banjo Kazooie, Spongebob Squarepants: Creature from the Krusty Krab, or even something more obscure, like The Simpsons Game.