Video Game Review: Dora Saves the Snow Princess for Nintendo DS
Dora Saves the Snow Princess for Nintendo DS is a video game based on the double length special of Dora the Explorer “Dora Saves the Snow Princess” episode. The game does nicely follow that episode’s storyline, however, it is surprisingly short. I kind of expected it to be at least as long of a plot as when I played Go, Diego, Go Safari Rescue and actually thought it would be better since it was newer. However, I have found that Nickelodeon has gone backwards and made it shorter and way easier to play through in under 15 minutes if you are an experienced game and still no more than 1 hour for a first time preschool gamer.
Despite the lack of much gameplay depth I will give this game some credit for great graphics and being entertaining for the time it does last. The Snowy Forest aspect also adds a little more depth beyond the story mode with it having a snowman decorating activity, an animal hide and seek activity, and coloring. They might add about another 30 minutes of entertainment, but still that is not quite enough to make this worth recommend purchasing new. Only way I see it worth a purchase is for a huge fan of Dora and it found for under $10 (including tax!!).
By the way the game also gets credit for being easy, but not too boringly easy like I found the Wonder Pets game to be. Thus it is not really the easiness that makes this a quick game, but really just the minimal amount of tasks needed to accomplish to beat it. Lastly this game has a few educational concepts like the show does (i.e. shapes, some Spanish).
June 9th, 2009 at 8:52 am
I’m surprised it is so short. I guess kids attention spans are lacking & Nick is taking advantage of it. My dd would still enjoy it though, I think
June 9th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Yes, it does seem young fans of the show will still enjoy it, but I think Nickelodeon is getting lazy and trying to release a bunch of games that kids will try to get their parents to buy all of even though each one offers such little content for the price. There are a few good games mixed in, but mostly the older ones have more content and it seems the games should get better and not worse as seems to actually be happening.