One thing that my wife and I
have been laughing about lately is my daughter’s wish list for the upcoming
holidays. Every single this or that that happens to pop up on the screen during
her favorite shows is included in this growing and absurd list of what she
wants, and one thing that has been dominating the charts lately are things from
Disney’s Princess collection. Well, you can imagine how ecstatic she was over
the new Disney Princess Royal Horse Show game for the PC, which is a title that
allows you to decorate and ride horses with four of the characters from the
popular line.
Royal Horse Show takes Princess fans to the royal
fairgrounds as Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora, and Belle are getting ready for
the big horse competition. Players get to help the four princesses decorate the
horses and the fairgrounds, and ultimately compete in the big horse riding and
jumping show for the kingdom. There are also some collectable cards to earn
along the way, some additional printing activities, and a few secret surprises
to get unlocked as you go.
There are four areas to play in with Royal Horse Show.
There are the stables, which is where you decorate and make the horses pretty
and ready for competition, the decorating area, which is where you change
decorations for the fairgrounds like flowers, curtains, etc., the arena, which
is where horses are ridden and shown off for the kingdom, and the craft cottage,
which is where players can go in and view the number of collectable horse
picture and fact cards that they have unlocked, or even print out a growth chart
to hang on their wall to see how big they are getting.
Royal Horse Show is similar
in many ways to other titles that are out for PC, since most of the game takes
place on static 2-D backgrounds that have point and click options. Changing bows
and flower arrangements is simply a matter of placing the cursor over the
glowing areas and clicking, and the same goes for fixing up the decorations on
the horses themselves. Everything was made simple so even the youngest Princess
fan and gamer can sit down and do a little work on their own with minimal
assistance from Mom or Dad.
The horse riding part is a
little different though, since the horse can be manually controlled and made to
jump by either the keyboard or mouse directions. The horse will run on a set
path around the track, and will go around jumps if they are missed, and in the
beginning there is a little bird to pop up and help new players try and get
adjusted to their timing to help out later on. By winning the competitions, more
collectable horse cards (and maybe a couple of other surprises) are unlocked.
While Royal Horse Show will
probably be a lot of fun for younger fans of the series, it really doesn’t add
anything different from other similar titles out … and in some areas feels like
it actually has less. Some other decorating games that have been out like
Kelly’s Pet Parade allow players to add decorations wherever they see fit to
help add to their creativity, but RHS has everything from saddles to drapes in
certain places only which can quickly get repetitive, even for the biggest fan
of the genre. While there are some unlockable things to get, many are things
like “decorate two separate horses and you get another one”, so if they are
getting bored with the static decorations that they already have adding a new
horse to the picture may not be as good of a thing as it seems.
Overall, Royal Horse Show is
probably going to sell a bunch of copies due to the characters involved, and
it’s a great “limited adult help” game for younger girls who are fans of the
series. Older gamers and fans of Disney Princess may not have as much fun with
it though, and will probably get bored or find it getting too repetitive too
soon.
Gameplay: 7.0
The controls are
very easy to figure out even for the youngest Princess fan out there since
everything is simple point and click. While there are a lot of different
combinations to use, it’s all been done before and the lack of free placement in
items on the horses and fairgrounds can cause the game to get repetitive
quickly. There are collectable “horse facts” cards to get and a lot of pictures
can be printed which may help add to overall enjoyment.
Graphics: 7.5
The graphics
looked good, and the characters from the Princess series were well animated. The
game is very colorful, and almost all of the screens take place in static 2-D
backgrounds. The horse riding was a neat idea, since players will see only the
back of their horse’s head and the surrounding area in front while riding to
help them feel like they are really in the game.
Sound: 7.6
The voiceovers
are pretty true to the animated movie idols that they represent, and the music
has that royal orchestrated Disney kind of feel to it all the way through.
Difficulty: Easy
The whole game is
very easy to figure out due to the point and click style, even for younger
gamers, so it won’t be too much of an “I need help with this” title for even
younger Disney fans.
Concept: 6.9
Obviously it’s a
good idea to take Disney’s popular animated heroines and place them into a PC
game for young girls, but there’s not really anything new that’s been done
(except for the Disney characters of course) and the lack of free placement
actually may make it get boring a lot faster.
Overall: 7.0
Basically, Royal Horse Show
is a good game to get for your 3 – 5 year old Princess fan in the house, since
it’s easy enough for them to play with and navigate through with out a lot of
frustration due to not being able to figure out what to do. Older players ( 6
and up), whether fans or not, may find the static item placement and repetitive
nature to be a little on the boring side though since it’s all been done before
and probably wont get as much out of it.
