Game Review: Where's Waldo? the Fantastic Journey for the Nintendo DS

Some might know this fella by the name of Wally. He travels the world and has the keen ability of hiding very well, and then wants to be found. The books are great, so many hours of fun! And now the books went straight to the Nintendo DS!

In this review I'll talk about the many aspects of the game, and give a score based in a scale from 1 to 10. So let's begin!

Audio [9/10]
The audio is really pleasant. Voice acting is pretty nice, the quality of the music and sound effects is superb. The music is perfect for a puzzle game like this, and doesn't get boring. And the sound effects are all nice, except when you lose a star [more on this later], the sound effect is barely noticeable, but not really a problem.

Controls [8/10]
The controls and touch-screen mechanics are very well done. Tapping or clicking on an item is accurate; flicking through the pages, scrolling around... it all feels perfect. The only downside is that there is no option to use the buttons to scroll through the map, it has to be done with the stylus. As I mentioned, the touch-screen interface is perfect, but the option to click with the stylus while scrolling with the d-pad [or buttons if you're a lefty] would have been welcome. Anyway, what isn't there, isn't missed much because what is there, is perfect.

Graphics [9/10]
My first thought was "this will look so bad on the DS's screens..." but surprisingly, it looks very, very good. There are no fancy 3D graphics, but that's obvious, this is supposed to look like the books, and it surely does look that way. The drawings are crisp, the animations are nice and funny, and they blend very well with the sound. So why did I give it a 9? Because there is just one little issue: you can't zoom in or zoom out. As with the controls, it's not a big issue because the drawings are clear and there's hardly the need to zoom in or out, but it would have been a nice thing to have.

Difficulty [10/10]
When you start the game, you're given 2 options: Easy, or Normal. The game rates your score with a time bar, marked with 5 stars. The bar depletes faster in the Normal difficulty. If you score 5 stars, you're given the option to replay that level with different, harder objects to find. To help you with the hard ones, and for a limited amount of times, you can push the B button to call Woof, Waldo's dog, who will take you where the item is, but you still have to find it in the screen. The difficulty level is just like the books': it's challenging -not too easy, and not so hard that it will make stop playing.

Overall Gameplay [10/10]
The moment of truth.. *drumrolls...* this game simply rocks.
When the game starts, it tells you Waldo's story; how he wanted to know himself by making a journey throughout the world along with Wenda and Woof. Wizard Whitebeard taught Waldo and his friends to be noble and introduce himself anywhere he goes, and asks him to retrieve 12 scrolls, in order for Waldo to find the truth he sought.
After the tutorial, you're presented with the world map. Every level is like a page from the book, and you first need to find Whitebeard, Wanda, and Waldo. After that, you're asked to find a number of items and people in funny situations.. you might think it's easier because you're limited to search in a smaller area of the whole page, but think again, since items are small and hard to find. Lastly, you have to find the scroll in that level, which is the hardest to find. There's a star rating system, the maximum being 5. As time runs out and the bar depletes, you lose stars. For every item you find, the bar refills a little. When you tap wrong items or people, you get confused and birds fly around in the screen, and you have to click on them to make them disappear and continue to play. You have to do this as fast as possible, because time keeps running out.

Final Words
The game is simple, and is the closest thing to the books. If you like finding hidden things in intricate and comical scenes, this game will keep you busy for hours. It may lack a few options, and some might not like some details, but overall, as I said before, this game rocks.

Review by Tom Parra, 2009