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Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of GaHoole Review for Nintendo DS

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of GaHoole Review for Nintendo DS

Legendary Owls

Let’s make it simple: Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole is an awful DS game. The graphics are so terrible that they make the game hard to play, the missions are repetitive, and the combat is mind-numbingly easy.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole screenshot

If you’re still with us, we respectfully advise you to reconsider. Check out one of our other reviews instead. (Maybe Professor Layton and the Unwound Future would be a better DS game to buy. It’s fun and educational!) But if you’re absolutely set on hearing the gory details, here they are.

The game is based on the 3-D animated movie of the same name, which in turn is based on a series of books. You play as Shard, a young member of the Guardians, the elite military squad that protects the land of Ga’Hoole. Shard has to fight the Pure Ones, a group of evil birds who want to kidnap the residents of Ga’Hoole and make them slaves. The story is nothing special, but the colorful cutscenes that present it are one of the game’s best attributes, along with the majestic-sounding music. (The annoying sound effects are a different matter.)

Basically, there are two types of gameplay here. In one, you navigate obstacle courses, flying around while avoiding giant circular saws, lightning bolts, and falling rocks. During these segments, you’re often racing another bird, trying to fly through enough rings to escape a vortex, or looking for items to complete the game’s various errands.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole screenshot

These parts of the missions should be enjoyable enough because the controls are perfectly intuitive. You fly forward by touching the middle of the screen with the stylus, and turn by moving the stylus around on the screen. You can do a 180-degree turn by tapping any button. This is how controlling an owl on a handheld console should feel.

Unfortunately, though, the graphics make these sections a frustrating mess. The biggest problem is that there are far too many invisible walls. All of a sudden, Shard will just get caught in mid-air; you can clearly see that there’s nothing blocking the guy’s path, but he won’t move. This is particularly obnoxious when an invisible wall holds you still while a moving obstacle hits you, sapping precious life, or when you get caught up during a close race. Also, the bare-bones visuals don’t always make it clear where you can fly and where you can’t. We sometimes flew head-on into objects thinking they were flight paths. Thanks to these problems, the hardest parts of the game aren’t difficult because they’re well-designed and challenging, but rather because you have to memorize where all the problems are so you can avoid them.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole screenshot

Periodically, you come across enemy birds while flying, and by tapping them you can enter a fight scene, the other gameplay type, which takes place on a two-dimensional plane. The combat is far less frustrating than the flying, but only because it’s ridiculously easy, even for a kids’ game. According to the combat tutorial, you’re supposed to fly around avoiding enemy birds, occasionally tapping your foes a few times to perform a combo. When you get surrounded, you’re supposed to do a spin move by drawing a circle around Shard repeatedly, and when you can’t avoid getting hit, you’re supposed to block by holding any button. Each blow you land helps to fill a meter, and when it’s full, you can perform a special move.

It soon becomes obvious that those techniques aren’t really the most effective ones, however. For some reason, blocking makes you completely invincible in most fights, so you can win effortlessly by holding down any button, waiting for a bird to attack, countering with a few blows, and then blocking again. Fighting is a big part of The Owls of Ga’Hoole, so this process gets old long before you reach the final stretch. It’s like a Punch-Out!! game without the ducking and dodging.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole screenshot

It’s a good thing the fighting is so easy, however, because the controls frequently malfunction in these scenes. Depending on how you like to rest your hands, you might hold buttons by accident, which can make Shard block when you want him to attack. During the boss fights, which actually require you to fly around instead of blocking, flying in a circle sometimes makes Shard do his spin move, which can give the boss enough time to hit you. Also, the special-move system, which requires you to draw a line in one of four directions on top of the enemy you want to hit, is imprecise. We often hit the wrong bird or executed the wrong move.

The developers also worked in some light RPG elements. By collecting yellow orbs and killing enemies, you can level up your character, which earns you points that you can use to make your special moves stronger. You also unlock four wingmen during the course of the game, which give you an extra item spot, make your special-move meter fill faster, refill your health between fights, and make you earn experience faster. (You can change your wingman selection before each mission.) These elements provide an extra layer of depth without taking up too much time.

The nineteen core missions can be completed in five to six hours, which is a bit short for a video game (but feels long nonetheless). Also, to earn gold medals in the missions, you’ll have to finish them within demanding time limits and collect lots of items in them. This entails playing them multiple times, and we’re not quite sure why you’d put yourself through that, but it unlocks the game’s bonus stages, which add replay value if you really don’t have anything better to do.

If it’s not abundantly clear by this point, there is no reason for you to buy Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. If the average movie-based game is a disappointment, this game is a train wreck. Virtually none of its qualities could be called “redeeming,” from the confusing graphics to the awful combat system. It is yet another cynical attempt to trick gamers into buying a sloppy, uninspired game because they liked the movie. Don’t fall for that trick again.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 1.4 Graphics
They’re bare-bones, and sometimes confuse the player with invisible walls and difficult-to-discern flight paths. 2.6 Control
The flight controls are quite good, but the combat controls don’t work well. 3.2 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The music is a high point, but the sound effects are annoying. 1.2

Play Value
Do. Not. Buy. This. Game.

1.3 Overall Rating – Avoid
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • Explore the world of the animated film with full 360-degree flight mechanics in over twenty-five levels across five unique worlds.
  • Multiple types of gameplay: flight, combat, racing, and RPG-style leveling up.
  • Robust combat system with lock-on targeting and melee combos.
  • Stunning visuals and environments based on assets from the film.

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