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A review by an adult who has observed their child playing.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 23 / 23
Date: December 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have a 4.5 year old daughter, a 3 year old daughter, and a 10 year old daughter.

There are three major components to the game
1. the singing part
2. digging part (rubbing on screen, blowing)
3. the "missions" (helping fish by tapping on the screen)

Unfortunately items 1 and 2 are great for 3 to 5 year olds, but #3 is better for 6 to 7 year olds. And, the "abilities" and "interest levels" required for those tasks are for far different ages.

Both of my younger girls like both the singing and the digging. And, in my opinion, these parts are about on the level of a 4 to 5 year old. They are the coolest parts of the game and make the best use of the DS Lite's innovative features. So they can do the singing and the digging pretty easily without reading anything, because its the same every time.

But to do the missions, the child has to be able to read well. Not simple reading, but normal reading. My 4.5 year old is only able to do simple reading.

It was my younger daughters who were interested in the game the most. Coincidentally, my oldest daughter was really done with princesses and mermaids by the time she could have read these instructions to herself and really grasped everything.

So I tend to look at this as a game for younger kids (due to its simple nature), but, its oddly tareted to older kids due to the reading requirement.

You can read the instructions to the younger kids, but, with my middle daughter (who is 4.5 years old now) the whole "missions" and "side missions" concepts was a bit too intangible for her to be interested in. (these are my words for the little jobs the game gives you to do).

It was also hard for her to remember multiple tasks at the same time (during the game, you are keeping it in your mind that you are tasked with 4 or 5 things even though you do one thing at a time. This is normal in games for more older audiences).

As someone who works in a video game industry (I design and test accessories and have several DS lites lying about), i know that they could have fit "audio" instructions into the cartridge, so really, they probably didn't have the budget for that, or they were cutting corners, or whatever. Thats a shame, because it would have made the game perfect for a younger child, for example, reading along with the text on the screen.

So here is the deal:
**If you buy it for your younger child who can only read simple words, for use on car trips, or when they are sick (which is when my daughter played it), or whatever, they will get "some" enjoyment out of it - but expect to be at their shoulder a lot of the time.
**If you buy it for your older child, the basic nature of the tasks *may* be too simplistic and the end of the game may be unsatisfying.

In short, I give it 3 stars overall because:
1) the game is really quite cute and has some innovative stuff.
2) the game could have been developed better.
3) the reading requirements of different tasks are for too wide a range of age levels to be perfect for any age group.

Conclusion:
It is, in some ways, a game for any age, and in other ways, a game thats not quite right for any age. But, if your 7 or 8 year old LOOOOVES anything with Ariel in it - even if its below her level intellectually - then it will probably be just right for her.

Just an addendum:
Even my 3 year old enjoys digging the treasures out and cleaning them up. This part is really cool and satisfying for even for the youngest child.

Super Short!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 17
Date: October 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I was so excited when i got this game that i played it for an hour after i got it. It seemed cool but there wasnt enough things to do. All u do is find treasure (there isn't many)and from seeing the movie u would think she found lots of "human treasures". But really u only find like 10. I thought it was the whole story line of the movie but all u do is help your friends by doing things for them. You need to get 5 stones to open the reef door and when u open it u would think that it leads u to another part of the story. There is no ursula except at the end when u see her tentacles, no eric, no nothing. When u open the door the game just ends and shows the credits. I beat the game in 2 hours! I played it the day i got it when i got home and the next day after work and it just ENDED! I was so disappointed because I spent $30 on a game that had no story line or anything. It had nothing to do with the movie at all! I got sims 2 for $20 and that lasted a couple weeks or more than that. I was playing it all day everyday and it took me 2 weeks to beat it. But u can still continue to play it even after u beat it. On this game there is NOTHING you can do afterwards and it ends really suddle. I was PISSED. I definately advise you to not get this game if you like games to last a while and if your expecting it to be like the movie.
DEFINATELY NOT WORTH THE PRICE AT ALL

disney's the little mermaid : ariel's underseas adventure

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: December 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Cute game for age 5-6 but the problem is there is ALOT of reading, which means you sit with your child and do all the reading. We played for about 2 hours on it, and it's cute blowing bubbles, finding treasures and singing.. I really don't like the singing it's hard to get the notes and you have to, to move on. You put the face to the mic and stare at the screen to see if you got the correct note and after 3 or 4 times your getting a headache from being cross eyed looking to see if you got the right note. If your child just LOVES ariel, it's cute, but find it used so you don't spend alot of money on it, you'll be sitting with her for awhile until she memorizes the different things you do.

Too much reading!!!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: January 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

There is just too much reading for a 5 year old to play this game. And the tasks are quite difficult to understand and complete. My daughter who loves anything Disney put this game down and hasn't picked it up since Christmas day. Disappointed. The reading level is appropriate for a 2nd or 3rd grader.

Good franchise, but game is lacking when compared to rivals

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: April 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My 3 year old daughter asked me to buy her this game for Christmas. She's a huge fan of the DS and can play Super Princess Peach, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Kirby like a pro. So, I bought the game for her. Now, the Little Mermaid is a good franchise in general, and has a very wholesome, family appeal, so I would never think twice about buying a Disney product like that. However, compared to games made by Japanese developers, the play control was not intuitive enough for my 3 year old daughter to enjoy it. She quickly lost interest. And yes, she still plays Princess Peach, Sonic, and Kirby all the time.

Better than Zelda and Mario Bros

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 32
Date: October 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game rocks. Best video game ever made. Buy it yesterday!

Little fun

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

I gave this game to my daughter. She has 6 years of age. She thinks that this game is very boring

Not impressed- worst game out of the 20 ds games we own

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 27, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I would not recommend this game. My daughter has trouble reading the small print even though she is 7.5 yrs old and my 3 yr old can't read it at all. The screen is constantly popping up with more stuff to read. Sometimes you have to click four or five times just to get past all of the reading. All of my three girls hate this game. There are just much better options out there for children's games--some even in the price range of this game.

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