Do little girls own PSPs? Konami apparently thinks so, and with the release of Winx Club: Join the Club, they’re trying to capitalize on it. Trying, but failing miserably.
The title’s overly simple and easy minigames appeal to no one, since it takes more skill to turn on and hold a PSP than do the various tasks in the game. They vary in subject, from an avoid-the-obstacles racer to a memory game involving plants. None of it makes real sense, and none of it is fun.
As if it weren’t enough for the game to be excruciatingly painful to play, it makes you wait a while too. Skipping through the menus as fast as possible, it takes over 8 minutes to get to the first bit of gameplay. While it makes for a convenient time to make a sandwich or two, no one needs a meal every five minutes. It’s a mystery what it’s loading…menus and games hardly push the PSP’s limits, and the videos that load are barely decent quality-wise. It seems lazy for the developers to vertically letterbox videos instead of formatting them for the PSP, but then again, everything else here seems lazy too.
Players can use any of the characters from the show, a Saturday morning cartoon of the same name, though it only makes a cosmetic difference, and only in the menu screens. Unlockables include clothing and possessions that basically just sit there when acquired and are ultimately useless.
Winx Club: Join the Club is sure to make little girls, not to mention game reviewers, cry. Avoid it like the plague.
