Scooby Doo: Unmasked for Nintendo DS Reviews & Ratings by IGN

When we reviewed developer A2M's first DS game, Kim Possible: Kimmunicator, we wondered where all the magic had gone after a brilliant GBA edition a few years back. We didn't think there's really be an answer to that question, but -- junkies, we found that magic, and in the most unlikely of places! The developer's new Scooby-Doo game for DS is brimming with great platform ideas and a handful of fun touchscreen moments, and if it wasn't for the gameplay being painfully unpolished, this might have been one of the best pure platformers on DS this year. Unfortunately, the loose ends unravel the game in its short run, and unless you're a very forgiving gamer, this is probably better a rental or borrowed game than something to add to your library.

Even with it's problems, I've got to give this dog his day: the creative ideas explored in this platformer are quite cool. Taking off of the console action game, Scooby is able to duck into his wardrobe of costumes and hijinks to come up with clever ways of leaving enemies bewildered and knocked out. Here, Scooby can transform into a scientist, a kung-fu master, a bat-dog superhero, and a Robin Hood archer, and each costume has its own special abilities as he hops around the game's creepy castles and haunted amusement parks. Sometimes, these costumes steal the show. Sometimes, though, they show why this game opened the show way too early. You can float all over the game as the Bat-Scoob, catching air drifts to send you soaring over danger. The archer can create platforms anywhere on a wall with his toilet plunger bolts -- a very cool ability and technically impressive that allows advanced gamers to explore parts of the game that most would never find.

... Of course, if only Scooby had learned this cool ability before the game's 3/4 mark and there was game territory worth exploring, this ability would have been worth being so cool. We love shooting arrows around and bouncing on the end sticking to the wall, but there are only few Scooby Snacks are tucked away in the corners, and even then, the game's three or four hour length is almost over. And that's the case with a lot of the game, that it's missing a lot of what it needed to have been great instead of maybe just good. The scientist costume has a cool minigame to it where Scooby breaks down the molecular structure of "Mubber", this weird flubber-like goo that is the game's main mystery (it's supposed to be for making costumes, so guess why the "ghosts" and "ghouls" in the game want this stuff?) Unfortunately, that's the one minigame, the same one every time with just a little bit of variation. There's a good deal of extra touchscreen play in the game, where you use detective tools to dust and inspect clues, but many clues are red herrings that don't do anything (if they were funny, at least that would be something), and the sensitivity of finding secrets on the clues isn't very good. We got stuck in the game for a stupid-long amount of time when we inspected a photograph a hundred times before the game finally registered that we had found the secret. Unresponsiveness can also be a problem in the special chapter ending sequences, although these are still fun to play and worth a thumbs-up. These clever and fun mini-sequence have you running through a gauntlet to lure the villains into traps set up by Fred -- as always, at great danger to Scooby and Shaggy -- and you have to draw on or stroke the touchscreen to shake unexpected calamity while the villain gives chase.

The cleverness throughout the game still can't make up for one major problem: the combat system is pure dog food. Butt bouncing rats and robot ghosts is a guessing game, as sometimes Scooby will deal damage and other times, he'll be knocked back and off a ledge. When you're hopping around on platforms, the enemy AI is mostly programmed to seek you out and do nothing else, so they'll sit there on the edge of a platform to keep bouncing you back and to your death. Sometimes, you can spin-jump and kill them, but on really high platforms, that's not always possible. And with the clumsy collision detection, you're not sure to hit them anyway. Except for Scooby's spinning attack, nothing else this dog can do is worth a dang. Even the kung fu outfit, which you would figure would be the coolest outfit to fight with, is dog crap in a fight. There's no juggling to attacks, so you'll trade blows even if you hit well, and it's a guessing game as to whether enemy attacks go through you or hit you. The game's also not at all balanced in difficulty, with lots of blind jumps and awkwardly-distanced platforms. Some parts of the game would have been great for the kids into the show, and other parts are worth playing for action fans even if they aren't into the license, but kids will be bounced around other parts until they pull their hair out, while regular gamers will be bored by this game's overall kiddie-oriented design.

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