Dinotopia: The Sunstone Odyssey

"A disappointing game, even for Dinotopia lovers"

Introduction:
The fantasy of James Gurney’s books “Dinotopia” and “Dinotopia: The World Beneath” has had an incredible amount of popularity since they were published in 1992 and 1995, respectively. Dinotopia has been taken into other media as well, including a 4 hour long mini series that aired on ABC (now available on VHS and DVD), an incredibly short-lived TV series that died as quietly as it was born, and several video games (for PC, Gameboy Advance, and now GameCube and Xbox). TDK Mediactive and Vicious Cycle developed Dinotopia: The Sunstone Odyssey as an action/RPG game for GameCube and Xbox.

Game Play: (6/10)
The game play of Dinotopia: TSO is very simple. Players control Drake Gemini by using the control stick to direct his movements around the linear constructed Dinotopian realms. The A button serves as the main button, being used to initiate dialogue, skip cut scenes, and swing your mallet in a variety of ways. The B button is the limited jump button, and also serves as an attack when locked onto enemies. The C-stick rotates the camera around Drake, while the Z button shifts it behind him like in GCs StarFox Adventures. The control pad changes the mallet head being used and throws two different items. The X button is used to defend against attacks, and the Y button initiates some very limited magical powers. The L button locks onto enemies, allowing you to circle around them like in Zelda. The R button allows you to dodge (although this feature has some lag, and can be the most difficult thing to execute in the game).
All in all, the controls are fairly smooth. While this game is rated T, a child would easily excel as this game. Dinotopia: TSO features three difficultly settings, however, none of them are particularly difficult if you can master the block and dodge movements.
The biggest problems in game play is that the game in so linear. You have no dialogue options when speaking to NPCs, the only way to get away from enemies is to step out of their territory (and even then the enemies stand where you left them and wait to be picked off with a long range attack), or kill them outright. You don’t need to have any brains at all to beat this game; all you need is thumbs and index fingers.

Story: (3/10)
The storyline is the most frustrating, and almost pointless, part of the game. Anyone who knows anything about the world of Dinotopia knows that this is a place where humans and dinosaurs live in peace. So how do you create a game that allows for combat situations between humans and humans, and humans and dinosaurs? Simple. You throw the audience a meatless bone to cover up the fact that the third code of Dinotopia is “Weapons are enemies even to their owners.”
In Dinotopia: TSO Drake Gemini is on a mission to protect Dinotopia. His father disappeared in a carnosaur attack and Drake’s brother decides to run off and fight with a group of dinosaur-hating humans, called the Outsiders. When the outsiders start making trouble for Dinotopia it’s up to Drake to grab a mallet and beat the living snot out of everything and everyone that isn’t living the dinotopian way. Kind of a paradox, huh? When you aren’t killing things, you have the option of helping the people of Dinotopia by doing some fetch-quests.

Graphics: (5/10)
The graphics in this game are nothing to write home about. Everything in the game has the graphics of PS2s Summoner, but with none of the mouth-moving action. That’s right, everyone on Dinotopia is a ventriloquist. The cut scenes have no polished quality, the people stand around and talk with very little movement.

Sound/Voice Acting: (5/10)
The music in Dinotopia: TSO gets very old, very fast; it actually changes very little from level to level. The voice acting ranges from okay to really horrible. Most of the voices have strong accents, making it difficult to understand…and unbearable to listen to for long periods of time.

Play Time: (3/10)
The game takes slightly less then 6 hours to play including all the quests.

Replayability: (4/10)
Several of the levels are quite fun, and while you don’t have to play for long to get to them, it really isn’t worth it.

Final Score:
4/10

Buy or Rent?
While the game would only cost you 20 bucks, it’s not worth that much. If you like Dinotopia consider renting it some day when you are bored out of your mind. You can easily get through it in one day. If you have never heard of Dinotopia or just don’t like it, don’t waste the 6 bucks to rent it.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/25/03, Updated 07/25/03