The game puts you in control of two characters, Tormund, a wolf like creature, and Roberta, who belongs to a class of species called Acara. You’ll end up playing both roles separately in the beginning, and eventually the two characters will meet up within the story, which will give you the ability to switch between the characters whenever you feel its necessary. The game heavily resembles a platforming-adventure, but a lot of focus is spent on exploration more than anything. Sometimes, quite a bit of unneeded exploration. In true “collect ‘em all” fashion, you’ll also spend quite a bit of time picking up and collecting various items thru out the play-world, all of which will give you certain boosts, such as attribute enhancements, magic based items call Motes, small creatures called PetPets, and a few other things. Actually, all the collecting based stuff is a bit addictive and fun, and plays a bit like a simulation more than anything. It’s when you get into the actual platforming elements, combat in particular, that the game begins to truly suck.

The environments are pretty spacious, and you’re allowed to walk pretty much where you please, but you’ll find a severe lack of things to do. A lot of the “missions” you partake in will have you going from one point and back again, and after doing this for the 30th time, it will all become pretty bland and tedious. You’ll also spend quite a bit of time actually looking for something to do. Instead of directing you in the direction of your next quest upon completing the previous one, you’ll wander the world until you get close to your next quest giver, at which time an indicator will pop up and point you in the proper direction. What this basically does is causes you to wonder about aimlessly, with little clue or sense of where you need to be until you randomly stumble across the proper spot. It’ll become quite aggravating, and you’ll soon find yourself wishing you hadn’t picked up the controller in the first place.

And to further aggravate you, there’s the combat. When the game begins you’ll only run into fights if you try to seek them out. Either instanced combat that drives the plot along, or small enemy camps scattered about are the only way you’ll find yourself needing to fight anything. However, as the story progresses, the evil spreads thru the land (as evil tends to do) and you’ll have a much harder time avoiding enemies. Combat is incredibly bland and tedious, and a bit frustrating. You’re only given one attack button, which you can string into combos simply by hitting the button three times, or doing a jump/spin attack. That’s the only variation you’ll really find. You can also use the previously mentioned Motes in combat to help make things a bit easier which will enchant your weapon with a certain property, like fire, wind, earth, etc. By doing so, you can cause extra damage to enemies that are weak against that property. The enemies, however, are fairly tough to kill. Not so much because their crafty, but more because they’re cheap and have a ton of health. You’ll end up using quite a bit of health to defeat them, and the loot drops are never worth it. You’re much better off avoiding the combat when possible, but unfortunately that becomes near impossible towards the late half of the game.

The game looks and sounds pretty much what you’d expect a game based on a kid’s license to look. It’s nothing spectacular, and very basic. The voice acting is on the level of current Saturday morning cartoon cheesiness, but all of this will most likely appeal to the core demographic that the game is aimed at. That doesn’t mean that the developers should get a pass when it comes to making the game look better though, it just means that they figure they can get away with it, because the chances of anyone actually considering picking this game up reading this review are going to be pretty slim to none.

Needless to say that if you’re a fan of Neopets, you’ll probably end up wanting to check this out because, well, you’re a fan. However, for the majority of the gaming populace, avoid this game like the plague. There’s no fun to be had here.