Game #1017: Disney's Treasure Planet(Playstation 2)

  A hidden Jak and Daxter game?!

 Well, Disney's Treasure Planet took me by surprise because it's a linear platforming game that takes its cues from Jak and Daxter, of all things. While I never watched the movie from beginning to end, I did catch it a few times on cable, midway through, and I liked what I saw, so I guess I have some sort of a soft spot for the original material.

 In this game your objective is to turn on beacons. The game has about 20 stages, and 17 of those have 5 beacons for you to 'collect', the other 3 being bosses. You don't need to turn on all 85 beacons, but game progression is gated behind them. All in all, you only need about 62 of them to finish the game, so you could skip some stages if you want. There are two types of stages, on-foot and Solar Surfing. Beacons are not simply 'found', some technically are since they are activated after clearing some sort of platforming challenge, but others require clearing conditions such as collecting every Doubloon in the stage or 10 bits of green energy. Solar Surfing stages tend to have beacons unlocked by performing time feats, such as performing three laps around the stage, going through rings, etc.

 The on-foot stages were my favorite, Jim gets a spin-attack and a lounging-punch, just like Jak. For platforming you get a double jump. It works pretty well, it's not the smoothest platformer around, but it works pretty well and the stages are fun. Sometimes you'll have to work with temporary power ups, such as Power Gauntlets that lets you lift heavy stuff, another one that lets you activate switches, one that lets you glide, etc. It's super simple, but I think it's pretty competent. There were two small annoyances, firstly, sometimes lifting stuff with the gauntlets can be cumbersome, since you must use the Crouch button but you need to position yourself right next to the thing or it won't work. The other one is the camera, sometimes you won't be able to twist it the way you want to. To be fair, R2 will zip the camera behind your back no matter what, but still.

 Alright, so I'm usually pretty anal about 'mini-games' and the sort... but Solar Surfing was pretty decent. In a way, these are more platforming stages, except that you are moving around on a flying skate and the goals you're given are less puzzle-y. The board is responsive to your inputs, I liked how speedy it could get and the level design was pretty good. That said, I'll admit I skipped a few goals on the final two Solar Surfing stages since I couldn't be bothered.

 I think the game does falter a bit when it comes to portraying the movie's plot. We get scenes from the movie, which is pretty neat, but the story is not told very well. I don't think John Silver's betrayal is well conveyed at all. If you've seen the movie or if you're familiar with the Treasure Island novel you'll know how the story pans out, but otherwise the story doesn't feel very cohesive, which is a shame.

 From the fact that it borrows gameplay elements from Jak and Daxter to how fun the levels were, it took me by surprise just how good this game was. Mind you, it's nothing ground-breaking, it's a low-budget licensed game after all, but I feel like the developers tried their best and managed to get something quite good out of it.

 7.0