Rise of the Guardians

Rise of the Guardians (3DS)

My rating: 1.5 of 5 stars


Better than the Dragons game, but still sadly lacking as a game adaptation to a well received movie. Apparently in the Wii version, you can summon all of the other guardians to help you in battle and the story pages are animated. Neither of these are true in the 3DS version, making the game feel flat, repetitive, and slower than a snail when you have to fight the same never ending fleets of nightmares with one character over and over again. There is also the pitfall of the cages sometimes refusing to break in the "rescue from cages" quest. Can't very well stop the nightmare spawning, let alone rescue your friend, if the cage won't break in the first place. After half an hour of trying to break the same cage (tried alternately with all 5 Guardians at different times), I gave up for now. I'll likely go back to it as I hate leaving things unfinished and I do love ROTG, but it won't be making my favorites list.

Rise of the Guardians

Rise of the Guardian (2012)

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


After all of the Jack Frost/Queen Elsa (from Frozen) fan art circulating, I had to see where this rendition of a friendly snow master came from. It was a pleasant surprise to find the characterizations of the holiday spirits are not entirely what you would expect them to be. Jack himself is fun loving and a little bit lost until this new appointment as a Guardian helps him find both his past and his true self. In the process, children will start believing in him as well, and he'll find this new existence is more than he hoped for. This is also based on The Guardians book series by William Joyce. Overall it's very fun and well done, making it thoroughly enjoyable. I already want to watch it again.