If you're not too familiar with the cartoon that this franchise is based off of, well, don't feel bad, I'm not extremely familiar with it myself. It's a French animated series that debuted on Cartoon Network in the States back in 2004, where it's aired up to the final season, which is currently on hiatus on the network. The series revolves around a group of Junior High kids that can access a virtual reality world called Lyoko, wherein they take on abilities they wouldn't possess in the real world and do battle with an evil AI that goes by the name of Xana.

This game is based on the later episodes of the series, where one of the group members, William has fallen prey to Xana and is under it's control. When you begin the title, you'll be exploring Lyoko with your other characters, and start off on a search for the missing William.

The mechanics of the gameplay are all pretty simple and straightforward. You'll enter Lyoko and have one on-screen character to move around using the touch screen controls only. Navigating Lyoko, you'll encounter teleport locations to warp you to different sections, and a series of switches to bring down various energy barriers you run across. Enemy encounters play out when you run across an enemy on the map, which will then initiate the battle screen, which plays out like your most basic RPG's. It's a variation on Active Time Battles from other popular series, like Final Fantasy, where even if you don't attack, your opponent will continue to take turns, so you'll want to be quick in issuing commands to your party.

Your typical attack is a physical based one, and as you level up you'll have a few options to choose from for basic attacks. You can also perform special attacks that work like a standard Magic attack, all of which are different from character to character. There's also a damage meter, and when you fill that meter (by being attacked), you can perform a special move that's supposed to be more powerful than the rest of your repertoire. Typically when you begin these attacks you'll have to perform some style of minigame to successfully pull off the attack. After each battle you'll gain experience for leveling up your characters, and a variety of items that can be used for healing, or for upgrading your character's existing stats.

Unfortunately, as much as the gameplay resembles an old school RPG, it isn't that fun to play. The enemy selection is pretty limited, with only small variations in the types that you'll encounter, usually designated by a flashing color on the bottom screen during combat. The minigames required to perform the special attacks (think limit breaks) range from easy to damn near impossible to pull of consistently, which is disappointing because if you mess them up you're left with a missing attack or something that barely damages an opponent. Since these moves automatically replace your basic attack ability when they pop up they can often work against you. Also, the majority of the map layouts have you constantly backtracking from point A to point B and back again, usually in an effort to find the newest switch required to bring down whatever wall was blocking your path in the opposite direction. Every level involves hunting down these switches, and the occasional teleporter, and there's not a bit of variation in the gameplay from stage to stage besides the environments, which are all pretty bland to look at.

The biggest highlight for me was the music, which I actually really enjoyed, even if it gets pretty repetitious by the time you reach the end of the game. It has a really great tech vibe to it that matches the idea of the world you're supposed to be, and does a better job of reminding me that I'm supposed to be playing around in a virtual reality world than the rest of the game did.

It seems to me that Code Lyoko would do better by dropping this archaic RPG set-up for something a bit more fresh and interactive for their next attempt on console titles. For fans of the series I can't even really recommend the title, only because there isn't a great deal of plot to propel the story along. Cut scenes are few and far between, and the dialogue is pretty short and doesn't do a great job of explaining what the hell is going on for any newcomers to the series. Everything I wanted to learn about the world of Lyoko I had to do by referring to the Internet, which isn't a great way of making your game appeal to the masses.