Arthur and the Invisibles

"I haven't seen the movie. but I hope it's better than this"

A couple years ago a little game called Wario Ware: Touched was released for the Nintendo DS. The object of the game was to complete mini games with only a few seconds given. While I was joking about the little part, Wario Ware was a good game. It had a few flaws, but not very many games are perfect. Now comes Arthur and the Invisibles for the DS. The game is based off of the movie by the same name. The object of the game is, well, it's a rip-off of Wario Ware with a few differences.

You'll start off with one character and play through 10 levels of mini games with the 10th being a boss. If you fail a game, you'll lose 1 of 3 lives and move on. Once you complete the first character's games you'll unlock another character and so on and so forth playing about the same 10 mini games in a random order. When you reach the fourth character you'll have to play 20 levels with many repeats of games that get a little harder each time. When you win the fourth character's game you'll win a treat for your creature, which I'll discuss in the next section, and you'll move on to the next 4 characters. This is where you'll play 10 new mini games except you'll have to go through 20 levels for each character making the game tougher as you move along. I have not beaten the game so I don't know just how far it goes. The games are pretty much in the same style of Wario making you shake, twist, or turn things with the stylus as well as blowing through the microphone. When comparing this to Wario Ware, I didn't find it to be as fun with the repetitive 10 games per section and it wasn't as funny as some of the Wario Ware games were. As a matter of fact some of the games play exactly the same. The graphics were also lacking when compared to Wario Ware except in the opening sequence which plays scenes from the movie. There are a few sound effects which help the game out, but they don't pull it out of the hole its dug.

One of the other things that made Wario Ware fun was the extras in the game. Arthur does not have these, but in their place is a creature to care for. When you beat the mini games you are awarded treats that you can give your creature. I tinkered with it for a little while and found it to be extremely dull and lacking anything fun.

There really isn't anything else to the game. It's a total rip-off of Wario Ware and it's completely unoriginal. I somewhat enjoyed the first play through, but had no desire to revisit the game. That's why I gave it a 3 instead of only a 1. I don't know about the movie, but definitely don't buy this game.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/16/07