Disney/Pixar Brave: The Video Game

When a lass named Merida sets forth a curse on her family – turning her mother into a bear – she has to go forth and defeat all sorts of monsters to set things right. <br />Through seven levels, your task is to go from point A to point B, and defeat every creature you come across using your bow or sword. <br />Along the way, you gather up charms that will vary your attack. One charm is fire based, one charm in air based, one is stone (or earth) based, and the last is water. <br />Each creature you go up against is vulnerable to one of the four types, and the trick here is to ready that charm, and then beat up the monster. <br />You can also gather up hidden items that boost your attack power, your health, and your mother’s attack power and health. You also gather up gold to boost your charms’ abilities and power, get more health from potions and obtain other minor abilities. <br />But this game got repetitive really fast. Most of the time I spend wandering through the levels and beating up everything that I come across with the bow (the swing mechanism used for the sword is very clunky and unreliable). <br />And there’s really no difference between the charms other than aesthetics; there are only a few attacks available – the swing, the ground pound, the single shot, or the power shot. I was hoping for different types of attack for different charms, but that didn’t happen. <br />The game tries to break up the monotony with segments where you can be the mother bear and rip apart armies of monsters, or use the triplets to solve very simple puzzles. But they just don’t carry much weight to them. <br />If it weren’t for a very tough final boss, this game would be over in three to four hours – far too short for a game costing $50. I feel this game deserves closer to a $30 price tag. <br />Brave, the video game is fun for those of us looking for a simple beat them up game, but it could’ve been so much more than that. SKIP IT.