User Reviews (1 - 11 of 23)

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Great for preschoolers

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

We LOVE this game at our house. My little ones are 4 and 5 and play it over and over again. We have the CD-Rom version and the graphics are nice. The puzzles and games are age appropriate for 4 and 5 year old children. The game recommends age 5 and up, but I can see why so many reviewers were disappointed. This is not something an older child would like. The puzzles are a little on the easy side--matching, etc. and perfect for younger children. Great if you have a little Barbie fan or two. Parents of older children should skip this one.

Lots of fun for my granddaughter

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This computer game is lots of fun for my granddaughter. It took her a while to get into it, because in the beginning she got a bit frustrated with the program, going round in circles, but eventually she got through the intitial stages and then she loved it. She is 10 years old and pretty handy with her computer games.
I can recommend this game based on her experiences with it.

Varied difficulty, old style 3d graphics

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I got this game for my four year old [she turned four three months ago], and she can do, or muddle through most of it. But there are a few mouse based puzzles that are just really hard, where you have to move an object through a maze without touching anything. I am a graphic artist who illustrates with a mouse, and they are a little challenging for me, so they've got to be quite hard for kids. Most of the challenges consist of matching puzzles, of which some are pretty nicely drawn and challenging, as the objects to be matched are pretty similar. A few of the matching puzzles are painfully simple and repetitive, but they are probably pretty well targeted at the five or six year old.

The complaints about the quality of the graphics are from folks unfamiliar with 3d renderings and modeling. The quality is fairly consistent with late 90s games and older online 3d games. It's adequate [particularly when objects are in motion, it doesn't matter nearly as much how elaborately they are rendered -- imagine the difference between observing a painting and watching a play], and considering the price of the game [I got it for $10 in a retail store], it's fine. The shifting perspective can be bizarre, but it occurs only in limited areas of the game.

My girls love this game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

My 5 and 3 year old girls play this game constantly and they both can win it without assistance. Great game.

Don't Be Fooled by a Deceptively Boring Beginning

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 03, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This a "more" 3D game than the Swan Lake game because you actually move around in 3D environment.

At first I thought this game was really boring (compared to Swan Lake). BUT my four-year old daughter persisted and continued to play, and she eventually figured out amazing parts of the game that the beginning had completely belied.

Another Barbie Game!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: January 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

You know folks, this is what IT IS - It's Barbie. This is a fun game that my 6 and 8 year old girls love to play. It is not an indepth game that will challenge their cognative skills. Its a fun, girly kinda game. But, they like to play it over and over again. What more can you ask? True, the graphics seem to be a step back. (OK, may be two or three steps backwards) but the game itself is fun and That Is What I Wanted. After seeing the amazing graphics of my husband's new game, Far Cry, it really acsentuates the disparity between the graphic quality of a 'grown up game' vs. a 'kids game'. I'd love to see such detailed graphics on a Barbie Game....wishfull thinking. But the game is fun. Simplistic, yes. But fun!

Four and 1/2 year old finished game in 3 hours with some help

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: January 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

We have a 4 1/2 year old girl (in preschool). She had seen the movie so knew the characters and the goal of the game. That is... to make the wand of light and conquer Winlock. She completed most of the game on her own. She did need help with the moving icebergs. She got frustrated when trying to move Annika onto the icebergs as they moved quickly. Other than that, she really enjoyed the game. There are lots of puzzle type games. There are matching games and I must say they made them challenging, which is good. It really makes the child analyze the pieces to find out which two are alike. Your child must have good hand and eye coordination to get through this game.

So, I say, buy this game if your child has had previous experience navigating using a mouse AND using the arrow keys on the keyboard. Your child also needs to know what the "space bar" is as it is used in the game to "jump" and "collect" things.

In comparison to Barbie Mermaid, this was definitely more challenging. Good game for 4 year olds and perhaps 5 year olds.

Big Mistake!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game for my 5 year old - who loves Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus. Big Mistake! My husband and I have had to help her with most of the game. Eventually, we all gave up. At one point in the game you have to use the mouse in a circular motion to change the "horse" into Brietta. We gave up because we all had sore arms from trying! If you want to buy a great "Barbie" computer game..choose Barbie Princess and the Pauper! The game is fun and my 5 year old loves it! This game was a Christmas present and I would return it if I could!!!

ARGH ~ I hate this game!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is the first Barbie computer game we purchased. I was very disappointed in the quality of graphics and sound. It really reminds me of computer games from 15 years ago. I played the original King's Quest games and THEY were better than this.

There is little or no explanation of what or how to do anything and it is NOT intuitive. Yesterday, my daughter (5 1/2) was playing it and was told to stand on the circle matching the one Shiver is on. She did, and nothing happened. My husband tried, and nothing happened. I tried, and nothing happened. DD finally figured out (after MUCH time) that after standing on the circle, you had to press the space bar. There was no indication that was needed and no where else in the game (that I could see) was that a requirement for any other activity.

On top of the poor graphics, sound, and ease of use ~ the game is completely pointless. You just walk around and around and you keep looking for that (!!) Shiver! FINALLY after hours of play, my DD told me she found an area that you can play games. But, even to her, they seemed pretty lame. Of course, she keeps playing the blasted game because it is Barbie and she loves it.

Save your money! I got this 1/2 off at a Scholastic Warehouse sale and even THAT was too much. This is definitely not worth the aggravation.

We loved it

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My 2 5-year-olds and I love this game. A few of the scenes had difficult controls, like the log jumping, but the games were just hard enough to be challenging for them, but not so hard that they couldn't eventually get them, after I'd helped them a couple of times. They improved their mouse control with the map-through-the-shelf puzzle and the crystal-through-the-caves puzzle. The matching games were also at a good level for them. And the mazes were again challenging but not frustrating. They played this for many hours - there are many games in each area, rather than just the 5 of some of the other Barbie games. The graphics seemed fine most of the time. My only irritation was the inability to make a backup copy of the disc - kids are rough on CDs, never mind I had twins and they had to take turns.

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