GAMES REVIEW – Wander Over Yonder: Global Wandering

I was going through the list of Disney games that I was thinking of playing when I noticed in the recent games tab that Wander Over Yonder: Global Wandering. I personally haven’t watchesd the show yet but based off the reviews done on the site it’s pretty cool. The series follows Wander, an overly-optimistic intergalactic traveler who travels from planet to planet helping people have fun and live free, all against the main antagonist Lord Hater and his evil army. Sounds like a show can get into so I decided to look at this game from two perspectives; based on whether it’s a good game or not and whether this transmedia game makes me want to watch the show it was based on. Now on both fronts I do think it pulls it off but I’ll be honest and say I was expecting something more.

Well contextual story time again and this time Lord Hater has transformed the planet, Aqualandia, into a dry desolate desert filled with death and despair… or he just sucked the fun out of the planet, take your pick on which story’s better. And now Wander is here to fix the damage done by assorting a variety of moons around the planet and put them in the correct order. Some planets take longer for their effect to work on Aqualandia so it’s all in finding the right pattern. But don’t worry this cute puzzle game isn’t a brain melter as the designers placed in Lord Hater who gives hints to your progress by screaming in frustrated anger whenever you get a moon in the right position and cackling maniacally whenever you get it wrong.

The best way to describe Global Wandering’s gameplay is to compare it to a huge Iphone game Doodle God. The game where you mix and match two elemental pieces to make something else, like fire and water make steam. Global Wandering may not be that tedious but it does have the same tedium of just switching and swapping moon until you rebuild Aqualandia.

I liked this game, more then I thought I would. It’s a pretty good puzzle game with enough challenge so that kids and older audiences aren’t bored to tears by how easy it could have been. However I can say this in the games negative it has zero replay value. Once you beat the game, that is it. One planet to restore and for me it took less then ten minutes to find the right combo. While it’s a fun puzzle there really is too little content to truly make me recommend it. If they remade the game for mobile devices, adding a slew of new planets to restore then I could really recommend it. But as is, it’s good for a playthrough but just A playthrough.