Disney's Dinosaur review

Recommended

by John Rizzi

I've been on a bit of a nostalgia kick lately and have been playing through some of my old games. Revisiting Disney's Dinosaur after 17 years I can say with absolute certainty that the game is about as mediocre as the film it's based on. Though, I don't find this to be a bad thing. With the intended audience for this game being ages 8 and up (I was 5 when it came out), this is a great little strategy game. You control 3 completely different characters, each with specific abilities and specific uses within each unique level. Now, as an adult (and with an old yet fresh memory of the game from my younger years), these puzzles are a breeze and aren't challenging in the slightest. Even then, the game has an annoying amount of hand-holding where it flat out tells you exactly what you have to do, but I believe these hints can be turned off completely. But for a little kid of age 5, these puzzles are a great introduction of how to work with limitations and the basic cores of an RPG. Health is counted in points, experience points can be collected to level up each character, there are some well-hidden areas that reward exploration, and even with some of the tougher enemies in the earlier levels, the game rewards you more for finding another way to harm or trap the enemy rather than using brute force like trapping it behind a destroyed bridge.

Maybe it's the nostalgia goggles, but I still really enjoyed playing through this game again. If anything, revisiting it made me appreciate it a little more for introducing me to (albeit, very basic) RPG gameplay.