When I was a kid, we didn’t have any Harry Potter. We had Narnia. I had a ton of Narnia paraphernalia- I had the boxed set of seven books, I had the unabridged audio cassettes of all seven books, and I remember eagerly waiting for the Narnia movies made by Wonderworks to be shown on public television. I have even seen the animated version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
In recent years, the world of Narnia has taken a backseat to other fantasy worlds like Middle Earth and Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, primarily due to two extremely successful movie franchises. However, a brand-new fancy cinema version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is hitting theatres this month and they are already promoting the heck out of this movie. They have even gone so far as to advertise the movie on Go-gurt tubes. So all my four-year-old friends are super psyched about the movie.
Of course, if you’re making a movie that you’re going to market to children, in addition to strategically advertising your movie on snack items, you have to make a video game. Most video games on movies are notoriously bad. Netjak has even featured editorials about this very subject. I placed Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (CoN) on my Gamefly queue more than six months ago out of morbid curiosity.
Well, it’s pretty good, given that it’s a movie game.
The titular wardrobe appears on the stage selection screen. The levels themselves appear in the molding on the wardrobe. While you do have to progress through the game in order, you may always go back and revisit old levels in order to pick up more coins or items.
While each of the fifteen stages is unique, they all share some common similarities. Each stage begins with a clip from a movie, then switches to an animated cutscene to set the stage. The player will gain control of whichever Pevensie children are in that stage and guide them through the level. Inevitably, there are enemies to defeat and obstacles to overcome. Three of the four children have unique abilities that only they can do- Peter can use a sword, Susan has a bow and a set of panpipes that trigger events (i.e. putting enemies to sleep and revealing hidden items), and Lucy can heal her siblings. Edmund has the same abilities as his older brother Peter. This is a bit of a disappointment; it would have been nice if he could defeat enemies with his cutting snark.
Because the children have unique abilities, the player will have to constantly switch between the four children. This is easily achieved by pushing the right trigger. So, you can fight off a pack of wolves with Peter, and then switch over to Lucy for some much-needed healing. It can be difficult at first to get used to getting the right kid when switching between them in the heat of a battle, but as the game progresses, you get used to switching and ending up with the wrong kid happens much less often.
While progressing through the stages, you will unlock the ability to purchase new abilities for the children with the coins they have picked up. These abilities are extremely useful, like the moves that kill powerful/pesky foes in one hit. Lucy also has a whole series of moves that allow her to “tame” animals and ride them. I’m not sure if C.S. Lewis would be amused to see his beloved Lucy riding a wolf and making said wolf crash into other wolves, but it certainly amused me. It was also an extremely useful move for clearing out a field of enemies. So, make an effort to pick up coins- you’ll need them! Also, you can collect shields and statues. The statues are very important because in a later stage, you can use your collected statues to purchase reinforcements.
Additionally, the children will occasionally have to band together to do a team move. This is a bit more tricky to do since the children who are not currently being controlled by the player tend to stand around in a clump. To do a team move, press “Y” when two siblings are standing next to each other and a double purple ring forms around them. Once the siblings are connected, you can press the “X” button to unleash the team move.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of issues that keep CoN from being a really good game and not just “good for a movie game.” To begin with, the objectives are not always very clear, so there is a lot of experimentation. This would not be so problematic if checkpoints were more abundant, but it seems like the checkpoints are least abundant when they are needed the most. Furthermore, it would be easier to experiment with different options if the children you were not currently controlling actually did something like, say, fight back. But they don’t. Instead, they stand around like lumps gawking at the action. It would have been nice if they provided assistance, specifically when you need to use Susan to shoot arrows at a target and enemies keep knocking into her, throwing off her shots. It was really quite a process to switch to Susan, aim at the target, get distracted, switch to Peter to fight off the enemies, and then switch back to Susan and try aiming again. This routine would occasionally include switching to Lucy for healing. As you can see, it can get pretty frenzied with all that switching. And staying with Susan wasn’t much of an option because she couldn’t use a sword- when she wasn’t wielding her bow, she had a crazy kung-fu spinning attack. It was actually easier to switch to Peter than to try to use Susan’s spin attack, which does not have combo moves like Peter’s one-hit-kill combos.
However, the game does offer a cooperative mode. It’s only for two people, but it really makes a world of difference to have a second human player. A lot of the issues are less prevalent in co-op mode. For example, you can have one person play as Susan and shoot arrows at the targets and the second player can cover for her. If you need to team up, instead of wandering over to the clump of Pevensie children and hoping you team up with the right one, the two players can easily join together when needed. I cannot stress enough the difference your gameplay experience will be if you have the second player.
The color palette is made up of subdued tones, which is a wonderful complement to the environments. There were a couple instances of slowdown and clipping, but these were few and far between. The music pairs itself nicely with the environments, providing background ambience without overpowering the gameplay or getting annoying. Voice acting is mostly present in the cutscenes and sounds nice. And then there are the sound effects. They are annoying. Not only that, but they are the type of sound effects that, when coupled with frustrated gameplay, only seem to add insult to injury, making the player even more frustrated. It’s annoying enough to get smacked around by a flock of crows while crossing thin ice; Lucy’s injured moan does not help matters whatsoever.
The game is not very long. It’ll probably take you about 8-10 hours to complete the game, unless you’re big on collecting things, in which case you can spend even longer scouring the stages for hidden items in your quest for the elusive 100%.
Chronicles of Narnia is an enjoyable game that does a good job of capturing the spirit of the movie. It is not without its flaws, but it does make some attempts at innovation, which is more than I can say for most licensed games, if not most games period. It’s too short for me to wholeheartedly advocate a full priced purchase, but it is definitely worth a rental. .
