These interactive stories (Little Red Riding Hood & Puss In Boots) are part of a series of young kid’s titles that combine classic tales with very light puzzles and games.  They include a handful of especially simple activities designed for children in the 3-6 years old range.  The goal being to provide software that’s both fun and educational (not to mention wallet friendly at only 200 points)

game6The storytelling sections of these programs probably have limited replay value (due in a large part to just how incredibly slow they are)  Of the interactive activities, I think the Color Art (coloring) would probably be the one kids enjoy most.  The other activities aren’t as polished, and are over too soon (and having to go back to the main menu each time to replay them is needlessly cumbersome) Coloring should keep the little ones busy longer.

Among the positives are the various animations.  They are sparse and very simple, but a welcome sight to the otherwise colorful but still scenes.  Kids will surely enjoy them, especially since in one mode they can interact with them on a limited basis.  Occasional panning of the camera is also plus, making the story book come alive more.

Audio is an asset to these programs as well.  The music is very kid appropriate, and the tracks are bound to be appreciated.   Sound effects are fine, and the narration (in spite of its lengthy pauses) is done very well.  Children should be entertained by these programs audio offerings.

Since Enjoy Gaming is planning to continue publishing this series (at least two more titles are due for release soon) I’d suggest moving away from DSiWare and focusing solely on the 3DS eShop.  I say this not just because of the declining support of DSiWare, but also because I think titles like this are held back due to the technical limitations of the service.

Earlier I mentioned how incredibly slow the story telling parts were, and I wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest.  The narration made for painfully long and frequent load times (so much so that initially I thought there was a problem with my download!) No doubt this could be improved upon with a move away from DSiWare, which would also allow for more narration (so that the spoken words matched up better with what was displayed) without the need to cut anything.  It might be interesting to compare these downloads to the retail version, bundled as ‘Happily Ever After’ for the DS (seen in the video above) There is also an even larger Wii compilation.screen_bot_2_272x204

I can’t honestly score these titles, as not only are they not really games per se, but I fall short of their target demographic by nearly 30 years.  Perhaps our Pure Nintendo fans with very young children (six may even be too old) may want to take a peek at one of these and see what you think.  They are cheap, and similar enough that if you check one out you’ll know if you want to download the other, or buy the boxed version.

Thanks to Enjoy Gaming for providing these review codes to Pure Nintendo.