I'm impressed by the design of Enchanted. The game frequently moves between two worlds visually as Giselle is transported from her world to ours. This involves a lot of change in scenery, but it's funny how Giselle still manages to find piles of leaves, acorns, and flowers in the middle of New York. The control dashboard on the touch-screen that you use to select Giselle's animal companions stays the same from one world to another, and the animals you control change slightly to reflect each new location. Enchanted has a lot of stuff packed in under the hood in terms of gameplay, so the designers had their work cut out for them creating different backdrops, items, enemies, and characters. There are some areas where it would have been nice to see more variety in the characters, but most of the NPCs are just placeholders to keep levels from looking like ghost-towns. There is music in the game and some sound effects during battles or special events, but there is a strange absence of sound in some levels. You'd expect in the forest to hear birds singing, or to hear cars honking in the city, but the ambient noise isn't really there. The focus in Enchanted for sound appears to be music, which may be intended to follow the tendency of the movie's characters to break into song at the drop of a hat.

Enchanted is a movie-game that really follows the movie, not scene-for-scene, but along the storyline. In some cases, this means watering down the story to fit into the mold allowed by the game genre. Enchanted takes a different approach and tries to be true to the spirit of the movie. We join Giselle and Pip at the beginning of the game as Giselle is pining for her true Prince. Controlling her at this point involves some item collection, which feels like straight 3D exploration combined with a little platforming. Pip's scenes are more 2D, running through mazes, jumping, climbing, etc. Giselle gets to power-up by singing on stages she finds scattered through each level, but it's hard sometimes to discern how important the singing really is in helping you accomplish goals for the level. Collecting items usually is aimed at building or creating something - the singing actually is more challenging than the creating dresses stuff. All Pip's adventures are really just killing time, but they do connect with what is going on in the story. Once Prince Edward enters the game, things really change. What you might have stereotyped as a girlie game turns into a swashbuckling, Troll-fighting adventure. Edward even gets to ride a horse... I know, why do the boys get to have all the fun? These two storylines converge once Giselle lands in New York, thanks to that evil stepmother determined to keep Giselle and Edward apart.

The basic gameplay introduced in the first third of the game doesn't change dramatically, but there's enough here to make Enchanted more than a stale, go-through-the-motions licensed game. If the singing isn't a required part of Giselle's experience, you'll find that mastering her animal companions is essential. Many items that Giselle needs have to be fetched and some areas can't be accessed unless she has a helper. Edward doesn't have any such luck, and Giselle can even wear a special dress that allows her to take on Edward's skills. Maybe boys don't really get to have all the fun... In Edward's defense, he does get to ride a horse and do some cool combat moves. Even better is how this all comes to pass, through touch-screen controls. This boils down to more of an adjustment for difficulty, but I like to see developers using the features of the hardware and it sure makes Enchanted accessible for younger gamers. Even wireless gets a plug in a mode that allows you to trade items with other players. It's not like having a true multiplayer cooperative or competitive, but it just shows how the developers were determined to squeeze all the juice they could from the DS.

Since Enchanted The Movie isn't exactly crafted for very young kids - they wouldn't get most of the jokes, anyway - the game is probably a bit imbalanced. Perhaps the idea is that the game is payback for young kids that now get to do their thing without needing someone to help them out. Examples of this are the combat controls for Edward. You initiate battles by tapping on enemies and then watch the touch-screen for a series of tapping, sliding, and hunt-and-pecking moves you'll need to mimic. As you nail the patterns on the bottom screen, Edward will proceed to smash up his enemies on the top screen. For anyone above the age of 8, nothing could be easier. Giselle's moves aren't much more difficult, the hardest being her singing episodes that require good tracing skills. Most kids have these of course, so again it seems like the game is pretty well calibrated to younger gamers. Those above the age of 10 will just breeze through this - they'll probably enjoy it, since they'll be able to follow along if they saw the movie.

The touch-screen is the place to be in this game. Almost everything of interest happens there. Selecting animal companions, playing the mini-games, riding a horse, battling enemies... The sensitivity and placement of some controls seemed a bit iffy, as in the horse-riding segments. The instructions say to touch the horse or Edward in order to jump or duck, respectively. In reality, it is too easy to touch and perform the wrong action since Edward is actually on the horse. By accident, I discovered that touching the top of the touch-screen would cause Edward to duck and touching anywhere at the bottom of the screen caused the horse to jump. This made it much easier to pull off the moves consistently. At times, the controls during battle seemed slippery, but it also depends on your hardware settings and how many cups of coffee you've had already. The easiest and most consistent controls are for dependable, old platforming. Using the D-pad to move around and pressing buttons to jump (or perform cartwheels, if you're Giselle) always works about like you'd expect.

Enchanted isn't quite what you'd expect; it's actually better than expected. There is a nice flow to the game and lots of save-points, so gamers of all abilities will be able to make it through. The replay value is slightly higher than it would be without the wireless trading feature. Any time you collect items in a game, there's that temptation to go back and improve your score or find that one rare treasure you missed. The layout and flow of Enchanted is smart and uses neat tricks to teach skills you'll need to succeed. There isn't anything terribly deep to the game, but it's easy to see that what's here is more than just an attempt to scrape a few more bucks off a movie license. It would have been nice for the game to feature more of the movie's great humor, but the characters do get themselves into the same funny situations, so you'll get a chance to laugh at least from your memory of the movie.