Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom Review

Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom Review

Review by Jae Onasi

Jae Onasi is a freelance writer, gamer, and family manager. When she's not saving the galaxy or fighting dragons, she's probably doing something else geeky like watching wild birds, gardening, singing in the church choir, blogging, making a cooking vlog with her kids, or baking something yummy.

Dora Explores the Crystal Kingdom in this Adventure

Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom is a fun and educational game based on the popular character, Dora the Explorer. In this game, all color has been lost from the Crystal Kingdom. You’ll have to help Dora and her friends find four lost color gems to return the color.

The gems are hidden throughout the kingdom. Players have to complete different tasks to earn the four gems. This is a single player game for children who are in the five to eight year old range. It’s fun and educational at the same time.

A Loved Character Joins You

Dora the Explorer and two of her amigos will join you on your adventure. Children who love watching the ‘Dora the Explorer’ TV show will enjoy this game. Fans of educational games for young children will find it engaging and fun. Since it is designed for a young audience, older children will likely find it too simple. If they love Dora, however, they’ll likely play it at least once.

Collect Gems, Complete Words, Count in Spanish, Match Shapes

The game has four sections, one for each color gem. Each section is broken into three parts. In the first part, you’ll collect as many color gems as you can. The next two parts will have you playing one of the various mini-games.

The first part of each of each section is to collect different gems. These gems are scattered on the ground, on tree branches, and on clouds. It’s easy to jump to the branches and clouds to gain a higher score. You can even bounce off of mushrooms to reach gems that are out of reach. Walking along the ground will give you enough gems to move on to the next part of the game.

Once you’ve collected enough gems, you’ll come to the next mini-game. There are about eight different mini-games in all. These include matching shapes, identifying colors, or completing a simple sequence. In one mini-game, you’ll be shown a shape. You’ll need to click the cloud that matches that shape. In another mini-game, you’ll be presented with different colored crystal shapes that are arranged in a specific order. You’ll need to find the crystal that completes the sequence in order to move on.

Other mini-games will have you use phonics to pick the correct first consonant of a word or count in order. You’ll count six numbers in order for one mini-game. In a different mini-game, you’ll be shown a picture and the word for it with the first letter missing. You’ll be shown five different letters that can begin the word. You’ll be able to click on each one to hear the sound so that you can use phonics to pick the correct one.

For the final section, you’ll have to use your magic wand to combat the evil king’s magic wand by matching the color of your wand to his wand. Dora repeats the color names in both English and Spanish.

All of these sections are designed to help younger children become more familiar with shapes, colors, and phonics. It will also introduce them to some basic sound and visual memory skills and pattern identification, all of which contribute to learning success. This game does a great job of making all of those things fun to learn.

Controls Are Simple

There are two difficulty modes: Easy and Hard. There isn’t much difference between the two, though parents might want to use the easy setting for children who have problems jumping in the gem collection portion. Besides a mouse, the only controls used are the space bar and two arrow keys.

Since this game is geared to younger children, many of whom may not yet know how to read, all the instructions are fully voiced. The directions are very easy to follow. There are no penalties for mistakes. You’ll simply play until you make the correct choice, and there are plenty of hints sprinkled throughout the game. A parent might want to try it once in case the child gets stuck on a particular mini-game so he or she can help out, but it’s very easy to learn.

Classic Look and Sound

The graphics and sound are true to the Dora cartoons. Players familiar with the cartoon series will instantly identify Dora in this game. The voice acting and music are also similar to the show. Dora sprinkles Spanish words throughout the game just as she does in the show, which helps the player learn some new vocabulary.

I Win! What’s Next?

Once you restore color to the Crystal Kingdom with the four color gems, you’ll unlock an achievement for collecting gems and earn a prize. The prize is a fun coloring sheet that can be printed. You can repeat the game again if you’d like to increase your score gem-collecting score and unlock the next coloring sheet. Once you play four times, you’ll unlock all of the sheets. You’ll also be able to play in Arcade mode. This allows you to play any of the mini-games you’ve already unlocked.

Short Game—Good or Bad?

The gameplay is so fast that older players can complete a game in about 15 minutes. Once you’ve unlocked all the mini-games in the first game, there are no other mini-games or levels too unlock. This limits replay value for older gamers. Younger children won’t be able to run through the game as quickly, so the play value will be higher for them.

Conclusion - Short and Targeted To a Narrow Age Range

Gamers who already know letters, numbers, shapes, and colors will likely think the game is far too easy and be bored quickly after playing through the game once. However, the younger gamers will find the short gameplay long enough for their limited attention spans. If they are still learning numbers, letters, colors, and shapes, they will find the game challenging enough. Younger children enjoy repeating fun activities, so they likely will enjoy repeating their favorite mini-games once those are all unlocked. In that respect, this game meets its goal of appealing to children aged six to eight.