It’s not often that I find myself enjoying a video game based on source material primarily aimed at children. It’s even rarer that I feel driven to finish the entire experience. Sierra’s The Spiderwick Chronicles for Nintendo Wii is a game that stands out not only as a surprisingly deep all-ages game, but also as a licensed game that manages to deliver an experience on par with its source material.

Based directly on the hit movie (which was based on the line of best-selling children’s books), The Spiderwick Chronicles tells the tale of a family of three kids and their mom who leave New York and move into the secluded house of their great, great uncle Arthur Spiderwick. But strange things begin to happen, and nine-year-old Jared, his twin brother Simon, and their older sister Mallory investigate the truth behind their uncle’s discoveries, the hidden world that surrounds them, and the strange and dangerous creatures that inhabit it.

The game has a pretty cool mission-based structure. You’re free to roam around the Spiderwick mansion and surrounding grounds as Jared, using the pause menu to access the Spiderwick Field Guide and gain new objectives and hints. The first quarter of the game consists mostly of item hunting quests, and is actually a real treat for those who have seen the movie, as most of what you do directly corresponds to the narrative of the film. Thankfully, you won’t be spending your time aimlessly wandering around looking for a particular item, as whatever you need is logically laid out in the house, and gaining access to new areas keeps the exploration fresh.

The game then takes a surprising turn as you gain control of Thimbletack, the nine-inch-tall rodent-like creature who speaks only in rhyme. Using Thimbletack, you run through the walls of the house looking for items to help Jared and his family and do some basic platforming, while you kill cockroaches as part of a side quest.

As the adventure continues, you’ll gain access to more areas in the woods that surround the house, and since you’ll find yourself attacked by hoards of goblins, combat begins to play a much larger role in the game. As Jared, you can swing your bat by tapping the A button, or by shaking the Wii remote ala The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Unfortunately, the combat mostly amounts to pointing the analog stick towards the enemy and hitting the attack button over and over. Thankfully, as the game goes on, you gain access to some sweet finishing moves that require meticulous timing to pull off, and deal massive damage to your foes. You’ll also have the chance to play as Jared’s siblings, Simon and Mallory. Simon wields a large squirt gun filled with a liquid that burns goblins, and Mallory fights with her rapier. Every defeated goblin drops Goblin Teeth that, when enough are collected, increase your health bar.

About a third of the way through the game, you gain the ability to catch sprites (a.k.a. fairies). You can then store these sprites and use them in battle to gain such temporary abilities as super speed and invulnerability. But there’s also a cool minigame you play after catching each sprite for the first time. Using your Wii remote as a paintbrush, you “paint” an image of the caught sprite into a page in your field guide. Catching and recording more sprites increases not only your stats but also the effectiveness of the sprites’ abilities.

While The Spiderwick Chronicles has some great character designs and environments, the graphics get the job done but aren’t anything special. The game is also very dark, both in the figurative sense (kids are actually hurt and face the real, palpable threat of death) and also in the literal sense (it can be very hard to see everything on screen). Thankfully, the developers give you the ability to change the brightness level, which fixes the problem. But when I had to turn the brightness up on every TV I tried the game on, what’s the point of making it so dark in the first place? Still, I was thoroughly impressed that many of the game’s cutscenes featured lengthy clips of actual film footage (with finished effects work and all).

The sound is pretty good, particularly the attention to detail paid to the sound effects. Simple effects such as running on hardwood floors versus gravel really help draw you into the experience. The music is also well done, particularly during the quieter moments of the game when you’re exploring the dense forest all alone. Unfortunately, while the rest of the cast does a great job providing the voices for all of the characters in the game, the lines said by the main character, Jared, occasionally come off as dull and robotic. In addition, during my play through, the game occasionally seemed to glitch and output dialogue with a weird, hollow effect, forcing me to turn the volume way up for a few seconds just to hear what everyone was saying.

There can also be huge problems with the game’s camera. It doesn’t respond well to the fact that enemies can attack you from any direction. Instead of pulling away from your character to give you a better view of your surroundings, the camera stays fixed only a few feet away, and you can be attacked incessantly by enemies you can’t see. Still, you get used to avoiding this problem by managing the camera with the C button, so it doesn’t exactly ruin the game.

Final Thoughts

All in all, The Spiderwick Chronicles is a solid effort by Sierra. The subject matter, the different difficulty levels (I actually died several times on the Medium setting), and the diversity in gameplay throughout the adventure should be more than enough to hold the attention of any gamer, inexperienced or skilled, from the beginning of the story mode all the way up to its thrilling conclusion. It has some problems, and you may be finished playing after the story’s over, but if you’re a fan of the books or the film, or just adventure games in general, consider checking it out.

Rating: 7.8 [sprites] out of 10