For over 60 years, the Peanuts crew has entertained audiences from its early starts as a daily comic strip, to TV specials, movies and of course video games.
crew has entertained audiences from its early starts as a daily comic strip, to TV specials, movies and of course video games. In 2015, the franchise was revived for its 65th anniversary with the launch of the film the Peanuts Movie and along with it, the video game adaptation: Snoopy’s Grand Adventure . After experiencing many years of being lured with game tie-ins to popular movies and failing to receive a satisfying experience, it’s no surprise I approached this game with very little expectations.
Upon loading the game you’ll be welcomed with the very familiar jazzy Peanuts theme still as catchy as ever. I’ll admit I stayed on the title screen for nearly 5 minutes just to enjoy the song before getting the game started. Luckily the game took plenty of inspiration from the Peanuts past musical themes to compose the rest of the soundtrack for Snoopy’s Grand Adventure . Players will be enjoying smooth jazz tracks throughout their play session which complements the game universe and levels perfectly.
Back to the game itself, you’ll be taking control of Snoopy as he tries to find all the missing kids such as Peppermint Patty, Linus, Sally and more. It’s a very basic story and given that the game is a 2D platforming collectathon, it doesn’t really need much more. The game spans 5 diverse worlds with 5 levels each, including a boss level plus a bonus 6th world which offers something a little different. In each level there are 300 beans to be found along with 6 beagle scouts. Collecting everything is entirely optional and one can pass through the entire game and get all achievements without bothering to collect any of this stuff; making the point of collecting rather meaningless.
The controls are pretty straight forward as is everything else in this game. This isn’t necessarily a flaw with the game as I find the difficulty, pacing and presentation inviting for a new young gamer. Players can move Snoopy left or right, make him jump and holding the jump button in the air allows him to slowly hover back down. As players progress they will unlock several costumes which can be activated within levels to give Snoopy additional abilities. Some examples include the ability to scale vines, dash through blocks, see hidden paths, or have a low gravity jump. Donning a suit however comes with the sacrifice of losing your hover ability which is a downer.
While the controls are straight forward, the mechanics aren’t perfect. The jumps aren’t precise and make it easy to overshoot your target without tedious adjustments. Switching costumes in a level gets a bit tedious and it’s mainly required to access special areas to find all the beans which are meaningless anyways so again the costumes can mostly be overlooked.
Players will encounter some enemies in levels in light doses. Keeping the game friendly to newcomers, should a player get hit by an enemy, they’ll lose a heart which will hover away from them giving them a chance to jump up and regain it. Given that you’re invincible for a few seconds after being hit, losing a life is quite difficult to accomplish.
Going alongside the beautiful soundtrack are the charming visuals which use 3D models and background in a 2D setting. The characters are modelled based on their new 3D look seen in the movie. All the worlds’ environments look great and well detailed from lush green forests that have waterfalls and sunlight shining through the trees, to sandy temples and lunar surfaces. The developers at Behaviour Interactive really nailed the environments and atmosphere.
What Snoopy’s Grand Adventure lacks however is a sense of challenge or purpose for any player with a few years of experience under their belt. While the environments do change from world to world, nothing new is ever introduced to shake up the gameplay. The costumes, had they been used more effectively, could have achieved this but unfortunately they were not. I was pleasantly surprised when I uncovered the air levels where you take to the skies with Snoopy and his dog house to chase down the Red Baron. However this experience was just as mediocre as the rest of the game. Holding “Y” lets you attack everything on-screen regardless of where you are, removing any sense of challenge.
There’s also a co-op mode which reminds me a lot of the co-op experience offered in Mario Galaxy . One player controls Snoopy while the second player controls Woodstock who can hover anywhere on the screen and grab beans or activate specific machines. It’s not very interesting or engaging for player 2 and a feature that seems like a last-minute inclusion.
While Snoopy’s Grand Adventure welcomed me to a promising experience, the overall package did not deliver due to offering little sense of challenge or purpose. The controls work ok but could have used a bit more tightening to achieve smoother control of Snoopy. The audio and visuals were excellent and I couldn’t ask for anything better in this department. I’d recommend the game to any big fan of the Peanuts who don’t mind a very leisure game to play around in. Otherwise this is just another mediocre platformer you can pass on.
Written by Jason Lepine
Jason’s professional and cool-headed style masks what’s really going on inside. His ridiculous work intensity will drive him to spend 12 hours perfecting a video if need be.
This guy’s probably a notch away from exploding.
Pros: - Great soundtrack - Beautiful visuals - Inviting to newcomers
Cons: - Little challenge - Meaningless collectables - Too many beans
Final Score: 6 / 10
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