Donald Duck Advance (Game Boy Advance) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

Ubi Soft have only recently released a Donald Duck title for the Gameboy Color and this is almost identical only it's been given the Advance treatment. This is bound to happen a great deal in this climate of sequels, we have already seen it with Rayman also from the same company. The original, however, was a classic and great fun to play so could it be possible that the good people over at Ubi Soft have made a great game even better?

Gameplay

Daisy has been Duck-napped by the evil and unscrupulous Merlock and it's up to you to save her. Donald Duck Advance is set over various platform style terrains. Finding your way around them is not always easy as there are a number of foes who will try and stop you from reaching your goal. They are effectively dealt with by simply jumping on them thus releasing valuable points and allowing you to reach higher bonuses. There are checkpoints dotted around which are very useful as no one ever wants to repeat a whole level just because they've misjudged a jump.

Donald is an incredibly movable character and, in a unique move for console game, he's also capable of displaying a whole host of emotions. It should be noted that keeping him happy is always your best bet. Every level has a series of objectives but the main goal is to locate and collect energy spheres. You achieve this by finding magic books and touching them. This opens them and leads you to the, now activated, spheres. To make matters a little more interesting a timer starts counting down. Fail to reach the spheres before it times out and you'll have to repeat the whole process. Once you have three of these spheres a teleporter is activated and it's off to the next level. The secondary goal is to collect all the stars in each section although as all this appears to do is reveal a photograph it doesn't really seem to be worth the effort.

Each series of levels makes up a world such as Duckburg, Merlock's Lair or the Enchanted Forest. While most of the objectives required have been described previously there is one challenge in each of the worlds which can best be described as a chase level. Here you must reach the end of the course before the bee/boulder/bear catches you. It does make a change from the usual platforming and will have your heart racing just as you make that last jump. Unusually in games of this nature there are no 'end of level bosses' to speak of however you do face a major challenge before completing the whole game which is incredibly tough and achieving it will require more than a few 'continues'.

Controls

The controls are incredibly responsive and a well designed learning curve eases you into the game, increasing your skills as the levels progress. The collision detection is also spot on which is good because if it were anything less than perfect, this title would be a complete waste of time.

Graphics

Ubi Soft have produced another technically brilliant front end here, after the initial language choice screen you're treated to a full screen FMV intro which tells a little about the plot of the game. In addition to this the static cut screens are beautiful and look exactly like painted comic book frames. The rest of this title however is not a great leap forward from what you can see in the old Color version. Yes it's been tweaked slightly and the on-screen visuals certinly couldn't have been achieved on the older systems but they're really not significantly better as to make this title the graphical treat which we should be expecting from the GBA.

Sound

The audio side of this title is wonderful. From the sample that accompanies the FMV intro to the background music featured in all levels you'd be hard pushed to find a better sounding game and Donald has a whole host of verbal expressions which all appear to have been sampled, with great care, from the original cartoons.

Final comments

The biggest problem with this title is that it's almost identical to the Gameboy Color version in every respect with the only game enhancements being sound and graphics. It does however remain a solid platformer and is a genre that Ubi Soft really appear to do very well indeed. If you have the GBC version then, gameplay wise, there's nothing you haven't seen before, GBA owers, on the other hand should check it out before handing over your cash.

Pro: Fun To Play
Con: Not Very Original
Final score: 7

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