Disney's Cinderella: Magical Dreams

"Surprising."

You must be thinking "What? Yet another Disney girl game?", but let me reassure you that this one is definitely a good one. It reminds me a lot of these old Disney games on Genesis. Ah, nostalgia. Good thing Disney let the Cinderella license into DC Studios's hands, they did a wonderful job with the game.

Cinderella: Magical Dreams is not of those mindless 2D platformers. You need to guide Cinderella through the story from the movie, but you also get to play as other characters, each having a different form of gameplay. When playing as Cinderella, you can move up or down in a sidescrolling screen, to avoid enemies and pick up items. She can't attack the enemies, so you'll need to jump over them (or move up or down). It's really awkward at first, but you get used to it pretty fast. The controls are very irresponsible though, so if you don't jump before you're actually in front of the enemy, you still get hit even if you didn't touch it. Thankfully Cinderella has a lot of lives, so it's hard to run out of health. You can also collect items along the way, but they are optional to the quest.

Between each level, you're shown a nicely-done FMV featuring a scene from the movie to advance the storyline, which you can then watch in the Movie Clips option afterwards. The second character you play as are the two mice, but you only control one. These levels are a bit more of standard sidescrolling platformers, where you need to jump on platforms and avoid enemies. I actually found these levels a lot of fun, although nothing special if we compare them to other platformers. The difficulty of the game is quite constant, never too hard nor too easy.

In a few occurrences, you'll face a boss (the mean cat), in a short level where you play as the mice and need to throw buttons at the cat to hurt him. Other levels include one where you need to (hold your breath...) dance with the prince playing as Cinderella in the ballroom. Another one involves playing as the fairy in a mini-game where you need to prepare Cinderella for the ball by shooting potion bubbles. It's a shame the game comes to an end too fast though, it's over in a matter of only a few hours of play.

Nevertheless, the game benefits from high quality graphics (for that kind of game anyways), although the animation is a bit lacking. There are often nice effects like different layers of 2D that add a bit of depth to the graphics, like trees at the front of the screen with Cinderella in the middle and the background at the back. The best aspect is definitely the music, which is fully orchestrated, something not that common for a GBA game. You can actually hear the violins playing and the tracks are simply immersive. Too bad there are not a lot of different scores.

Of course, I'm not saying you'll like this game if you're over 10 years old, but it's a fun game for this age group (5-10). It's definitely better than all those Barbie and Lizzie Maguire games, so anyone looking for a good game for a little sister should consider getting her Cinderella: Magical Dreams if she likes the movie.

Gameplay 7
Longevity 5
Music 9
Graphics 8
Overall 7.5 ~ 8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/05