Wrecked?
Wreck-it Ralph has so much potential for a videogame, considering the film is literally based on a videogame character and is set in the gaming universe. But movie-game tie-ins are usually cursed from the get-go, so is this any different?
Well, the good news is that Wreck-it Ralph isn’t a terrible game and it works, it doesn’t have any bad glitches that I came across and it does offer a sound expansion of the story, albeit through cutscenes and text boxes between levels. The problem isn’t that the game works for once, the problem is that it just isn’t that much fun to play. You switch between Ralph or Felix in this straightforward platformer that offers little challenge, even on the harder difficulty that unlocks after you complete the game.
As you would expect from a platformer, there are collectables to be found and enemies to defeat as you go through the stages, but I did find it really strange how a level would just end after a certain point. It wouldn’t even look like you were close to the end of the stage and your character would celebrate to signify the end, it’s strange to say the least. Each character does have different functions like Ralph will climb ladders and smash boxes, while Felix will double-jump and fix switches, Felix can also deal punches to the bugs in the levels but Ralph can just run through them for the most part.
Each stage is a simple case of going from Point A to Point B with very little in the way of exploration, it’s a very linear path and the game will take next to no time to complete. Combat is dull against the bugs and bosses you come across, which are few and far between really. It would have been nice to have more gaming elements than just standard platforming levels, like maybe a karting stage or something that had more of an arcade edge to it, but alas Wreck-it Ralph for 3DS feels like a missed opportunity. The 3D effects are nice, but the cutscenes are not in 3D at all…which was frustrating. It doesn’t help that the game looks really average, the 3DS is capable of much better visuals than this. The voice-acting is decent but rare, while the music isn’t too bad overall.
The Verdict
Wreck-it Ralph for 3DS isn’t a terrible platformer; it’s just an uninteresting one. It’s level design is repetitive and the experience is short as a whole, I would suggest going to see the film instead.
