Players fight as Po the Panda and the Furious Five (Monkey, Tigress, Viper, Mantis and Crane) through 13 levels of this action platformer. The developers also include strong co-op and competitive multiplayer modes for up to four players. At least one of the original movie voice actors, James Hong, makes an appearance, though the mimicking voice talents of the main characters are very good.
The game has a nice depth in the interactivity and different vertical levels of the environments, but the graphics in this version are noticeably lacking compared to the Xbox 360 console version. The basic storyline basically follows the movie. Players must stop Tai Lung from taking the Dragon Scroll to gain power and destroy the community. A few bosses along the way also provide some challenges, but players who haven’t experienced the movie won’t get as much out of the game.
The single player mode features an assortment of punches, kicks and special moves realized through some creative controls, including motion sensing. The standard B button attack is a reliable default attack while the power punch has a bit of delay, but enemies usually line up nicely for it. Z button blocks are the only counter moves. Double jumps (A button twice) can get you out of some dangerous situations. The developers even add a few unique touches (e.g. stand on something for a while and see what happens).
The advanced moves are impressive (Panda Stumble) and funny (Panda Quake) and create some challenges when actually executing them in battle. Players can even just wave the wiimote around randomly to get out of tough situations. The nunchuk controller gets plenty of use in balancing situations and Crane’s flying, but mainly movement - a standard setup for most current Wii platform games. Unlike the balancing movements, jumping physics don’t always follow expected movements, which creates a little learning curve.
Article comments
1 - Oregonrich
wow, this game looks fun at first, then it gets to the dragon warrior tournament final, thats as far as you can go, wow, what a terrible bit of programming that is. like the developers said, "Let's make it just short of impossible to pass this level to make it fun!" well that backfired, I will not be playing this game any further after repeated and numerous attempts to get past the second level. I'm sure it has to be better on the Xbox, the Wii interface is just not working for the same game.