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Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue DS Review

01/09/2010 Family Eclectic Gamer Review
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Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue DS

Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue

Format:
DS

Genre:
Adventuring

Style:
Singleplayer

Buy/Support:
Support Clare, click to buy via us...


Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue extends the DS Tinker Bell collection with a more customisable and team focused adventure. The novel plant care aspect and connection to the Pixie Hollow online fascinated my daughter - even in a house full of eclectic games.

Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue is an action adventure game where you control a team of fairies on a quest to bring summer back to the English countryside by planting a summer garden. Rather than Tinker Bell herself, players control the leader of the fairies - a product of their own imagination.

Although I don't usually get involved in these sorts of DS games my daughter was keen for us to create her fairy together. We spent a bedtime selecting particular 'talents' - Garden, Animal, Water, Light, etc - to determine our special abilities. Once we'd chosen this basic fairy class, we could tweak everything from face shape and hairstyle to skin colour, shape of wings and then pick some clothes.

Tinker Bell is then joined by Fawn, Rosetta, Iridessa and Silvermist (part of the Fairy ensemble) to enlist us in our quest. Just like the other Tinker bell games - as my daughter assures me - the game proceeds through a series of quests that slowly grant you access to more of the game world.

The top screen shows a map with the action and controls on the bottom touch screen. You just use the style to move around and select things. From time to time there are minigames to complete. With a fairy theme these games make good use of the stylus and microphone - guiding insects, collecting pollen or planting seeds all feel natural to control.

My daughter was keen for us to create her fairy together.

The pace is steady and difficulty well judged for a younger audience. Although I was surprised we finished the game in a week or so of in frequent play, there were plenty of reasons to go back and play through the game again - outfits and items to collect as well as Pixie Hollow coins to discover.

Some of the accessories you earn can be taken online. There's the free DGamer website where you DS Fairy accessories can be uploaded and shared with friends. More involved is the PixieHollow site, here you can upload or download fairies as well as ingredients. Regular Pixie Hollow users will enjoy bolstering their online game world with unique items from their DS game.

It's the quality of the ride and well judged controls that make this good choice for younger players.

My daughter seems to dip in and out of these other sites, so the DS game offered a nice way for her to get to know the world locally before venturing online. Playing Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue inspired us to spend another evening together checking out the online space.

Like the other Tinker Bell games that relate to the other Tinker Bell animated films, The Great Fairy Rescue succeeds in creating an adventure game that recreates those movie moments. Although a little on the short side, it's the quality of the ride and well judged controls that make this good choice for younger players.

Written by Clare Sharpe

You can support Clare by buying Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue



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Clare Sharpe writes the Eclectic Gamer column.

"I think it's probably true that most of us have grown up with computer games - I have a dark and distant memory of some sort of black box with two controllers that allowed us to play an extremely primitive and pixelated game of tennis."


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