Does this game have as much care devoted as the bears themselves?

Dive into a world of fun and adventure with the Care Bears in Care Bears: Unlock the Magic. Play as Cheer Bear as and his friends in a variety of arcade games! Meet the Beloved Bears – Play alongside Cheer Bear, Bedtime Bear, Tenderheart Bear and all the lovely bears from Care A-Lot! Go on a Journey – Explore over 200 levels across a dozen unique minigames in the whimsical universe of Care Bears! Get Star Power to remove the Storm Clouds from the Silver Lining, meet the funny Whiffles and reach the end of the magical road for a lovely surprise. Classic Arcade Fun – Enjoy a variety of themed mini-games inspired by classic arcade favorites: Care Bubbles, Cross The Rainbow, Lost Whiffle and many more! Fill the Art Book – As you progress, earn unique stickers featuring art and bears from the Care Bears : Unlock the Magic television show. Collect them all!

Care Bears: Unlock the Magic is a bit of a weird one. It’s essentially 8 mini-games that you have to beat dozens and dozens of times to finish. These take inspiration from classic games like Snake, Frogger, Flappy Bird and Bubble Shooter. The problem is that you have to repeat these so many times, it becomes a grind and that’s not even the worst issue…

Taking aside the fact that the game currently has a glitched trophy that makes earning the Platinum impossible after all the endless grinding… (still pretty angry about that!) the problem is that the mini-games aren’t very fun and some even suffer input lag, making you mess up at crucial points on the harder variants of the mini-games.  I don’t know how it’s possible to get input lag on a 2D game on a PS5 Pro, but there we go…

There even seems to be some random framerate drops during mini-games like Lost Whiffle which is a maze-like mini-game, add that in with the input lag and it can become a bit of a nightmare. I was able to complete the entirety of the game, gathered every sticker only to find the trophy didn’t pop. I hope they patch this soon to alleviate my frustration after spending hours and hours of grinding out these mini games.

The visuals are basic but get the job done. Framerate drops as I already mentioned, while the music is cutesy but repetitive.

The Verdict

Care Bears: Unlock the Magic has one or two good mini games, but ultimately, it’s a grind to get everything and even then, you have to contend with input lag and framerate woes alongside a (currently) unobtainable Platinum!

Score: 5.0