User Reviews (1 - 11 of 37)

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Not that bad...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I've seen mixed reviews about Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses game. The bottom line is...yes, it does challenge the mind and my daughter has gotten frustrated with it but she enjoys playing it. I'm glad I bought it for her.

An Epic Game of Countless Surprises

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: April 03, 2008
Author: Amazon User

At first this game looked as boring as the Pegasus game in its beginning. Yet my four-year old daughter pulled out fireworks and smooth flight inside a gem filled cavern and many more things. I wonder just how long it took to develop this software? How many people were involved? Amazing puzzles are the true gems.

Twyla the cat and the flowers was my daughter's only complaint

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I cannot stress enough that you read Kaptain Kyle's review of this game. After we read his review it took us only 5 to 10 minutes to beat the "Twyla catching flowers" game. (Thank you, Kaptain Kyle!)

My 7 year old daughter ripped through this game in approx. 5 hours total. Granted, she has played all of the other Barbie games so she has some prior experience with the Barbie format, so it might have been easier for her than other kids who haven't had the prior experience. The second day she had the game she played the game from beginning to end 3 times. She absolutely adores it. I suspect she'll play it quite a few more times before tiring of it.

Good game with the exception of the "Twyla/flowers" hurdle.

We LOVE this game!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: January 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Most of the reviews of this game I have read are by frustrated parents that are upset that they can't use the computer as a babysitter for their children. They are upset that they "can't get anything else done" because their children keep calling for help. It is true, my 4 year old daughter also calls for help, however she LOVES this game! She takes great pride in completing a task whether it is with my help or without. It is also true that it has brought her to tears at times, yet she still asks to play it at every free moment. Each time she plays she learns something new and I have no doubt that in time she will be solving the whole thing on her own. No, the game is not solved in a matter of minutes at this age, not even hours. But I have used it as a tool to teach my daughter patience. I welcome the times she calls me to help her. Lord knows she won't be doing that forever!

Brought my daughter to tears on Christmas morning!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If I could give this game a zero I would. The game starts out good with nice graphics and all, bt very quickly goes down hill. The child has to complete tasks to find the princesses. The first task is to make a little kitten jump and duck to catch flowers, but if you miss you loose all your flowers. My daughter tried for over 30 min. Then I tried for 1 hour, the my husband tried and my son (a game fanatic) tried. None of us could complete the task. I had to try and explain to my daughter why Santa would bring a "mean game". The purpose of the game is supposed to be fun for the child, not frustrating for the whole family. Don't buy this game and warn everyone you know not to buy it. Lets stop any more children from crying because of this awful game!

too hard to use the arrow keys

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My four year old does very well with a mouse, and sometimes she needs my help. This game she just wanted me to play and watch, becuase it was too hard for her. She doesn't like it and got frustrated, I have already ordered the rapunzel as recommended by other reviewers

too hard for a 6 year old, disappointing!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is the worst Barbie game we have seen. My six year old was very frustrated (and I was too after several attempts at helping her). She usually plays games similar to this on her own, but there was no part of this game she could play alone. The instructions are poor and the kitty catching the flower game is impossible and extremely frustrating! I wish I would have read the other reviews before purchasing this game. We are very disappointed and after several hours, I'm sure it will never be finished. I think my daughter has given up and is sorry that Santa would bring her such a hard game. Do not purchase this for a young Barbie fan, or you will be the one playing it and getting frustrated too!

Great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

We bought this game for my 4 year old and she loves it. We have had it for almost 6 months now and it is still her favorite game. She has played it and finished it almost 5 times now. She has many computer games and likes to visit sites on the web that have childrens games but prefers this to any other.

The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because she calls me to help her with several of the harder parts of the game (throwing flowers on the lilly pad, and catching flowers for Twila). I cant tell you how many times I have had to do these, but they only take 5 minutes and then she is back to happily playing the game. Still, its enough of an irritation for me...so I can only give the game 4 stars.

Too hard for young gamers, annoying for older gamers

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My six year old gets frustrated often playing this game, and I know when she sits down to play it, I have no chance of getting anything else done because she'll require constant help, after which she'll usually have a complete meltdown, frustrated because she wants to play the game, but frustrated because she can't.

Activision here attempted to create a 3D game using Barbie, as she wanders around various paths collecting gems and completing tasks - major tasks that help unlock the 12 princesses in the game. In essence, this is a "platform" game that works in 3D space. Follow paths, jump over obstacles, jumps onto moving platforms and elevators, etc. (If you remember when the Mario series went from 2D to 3D, you'll understand what I'm saying.) Unfortunately, Activision chose to use the 3rd-person view, where you are looking over Barbie's shoulder (and can see her entire body), as opposed to making it 1st-person, where you would see the world through her eyes.

As a result, you have to use the arrow keys to move Barbie around, and pressing the left, right, and down arrows changes her body's orientation so that she's turning in 3D space. This is hard for a child to control, and it's even frustrating for an adult (who games quite often on a console!). You can't see the whole landscape until you turn her around and the camera follows her.

The larger issues:
1. the camera angles that follow Barbie around are terrible, it takes forever for the camera to catch up, and as a result, you spend more time trying to line Barbie up with a jump, platform, gem...and then sometimes she gets caught on an edge of something and you can't move
2. you can't really judge depth -- meaning you really don't know when to jump, and usually end up falling into water or off the edge of a cliff. Fortunatley, Barbie doesn't have any lives, so you can repeat the same sequence over and over and over and over...which is really fun
3. instructions are weak, and sometimes it's really difficult to figure out what you need to do. Other times, the narrator tells you everything you need to do -- but all of the instructions are given as one long spoken set of instructions, and you can't begin the task or activity until it has completed. So if you already know what to do, you still have to wait for it to finish.
4. there are no maps to tell you where you've been or where you need to go, and the paths that Barbie wanders are like mazes -- tough for young children. When my daughter asks for help, I don't know if she's headed in the right direction or not. Directional arrows would have been nice.
5. sometimes when you fall off a ledge, the game respawns Barbie facing in the wrong direction, so if you're not careful, you end up going back to where you started, and only then do you realize you've made a mistake
6. There are 12 princesses...so this game is quite involved, and quite long. And quite repetitive.
7. we experienced errors after finding the first princess. The error was addressed incorrectly on Activision's support site, and only after uninstalling the "full" installation from my computer, and reinstalling it in the "minimal" configuration was I able to prevent the error and continue the game. Fortunately I knew where the "save" file was stored, so my daughter didn't lose her progress.

This is a poor, poor showing for a Barbie game, and I'm really disappointed in Activision for putting out such a poorly implemented product. This isn't worth $20, and I don't even think it's worth $10. Save your child(ren) and yourself some frustration and buy something else.

To Buy or Not To Buy?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Buy this product if:
1) You want to be called upon constantly by your child to help because they get frustrated, disoriented, or just plain can't do it.
2) You want to stop a game and start over because Barbie gets caught in a loop and keeps falling from the sky over and over and over.....
3) You want to have bonding and empathy with your child by feeling the exact same feelings they do (Anger, frustration, exasperation) when you both try the "Kitty Catch" game.
4) You want to play a game once, and leave it in pristine condition - never to play it again.
5) You want to spend hours of your precious time trying to get a cat to catch and retain flowers.
6) You want to attempt to play a game through to completion, but also want to have feelings of defeat. (So close, and yet so far.)
7) You want your child to spend hours just moving a figure (Barbie) around a bunch of different paths using the arrow and space bar keys with no problem solving games or puzzles to do, and virtually no creativity involved on behalf of the child.
8) You want your child to learn new feelings, such as: defeat, exasperation, frustration, and self degradation. (Sprinkled with occasional tears).
9) You miss the temper tamtrum toddler years, and wish to revisit them by having your 6 year old act like that again.
10) You have money to waste.

Don't Buy this Product If:
1) You want your child to be able to complete a game in one sitting with no help from you in a resonable length of time.
2) You want a game that challenges your child's mind.
3) you want a game where your child can explore and expand their creativity.
4) You actually want your child to feel happy and satisfied and proud when they are done playing.
5) You want your child to actully learn something, (other than "the new feelings" described in #8 above that is.)

If you decide not to buy, may I suggust the following Barbie games to buy instead: 1)Princess and the Pauper: On the long side, but has both creative and mind thinking games in it that a 6 yr old can do. 2) Swan Lake: Lots of creativity, and some thinking games. Great game. 3)Barbie Horse Adventures-Mystery Ride: My daughter especially likes being able to choose Barbie's clothes and type of horse. Has some thinking games. Fun game. 4) Rapunzel: A short game more on the creative side than the thinking side. 5) Mermaid Barbie: An easy short game which has musical creativity in it.
Have fun with these instead!

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