Scooby-Doo! First Frights

For many players, Scooby-Doo! First Frights was just another game that they enjoyed, but to Torus Games, it was a do or die project. The game, which later went on to be one of the most popular SD games on the market, and just about the only one for Wii, started off as a hopeful idea for Torus Games, being a young game development company that was somehow chosen by Warner Brothers to handle. The stress and need placed on the developers, however, gave them a passion to pour their souls into the game and not only meet requirements, but exceed hopes.

Visuals

The visual arts area is one of the places that Warner Brothers gave out the most freedom in, and one that Torus Games gave out the most work in. The goal was to stay true to the feel and environment of The Mystery Gang and their world, but present them in a younger light with a potentially different art style, appealing to different audiences and giving something new to Scooby-Doo! Lovers.

The steps taken put Scooby and the gang in a new, toon exaggerated world of their younger days, without breaking ties with the original series, just as the creators intended. The art style feels perfect for the Wii, with its already toon feel and classic toon styled games, allowing it to fit right in anyone’s game collection at the time.

Gameplay

The contents of the gameplay are almost perfect for its intended audience of young kids and their parents, neither really knowing how to work a video game properly. Gameplay consists of a story to follow, light puzzles, cutscenes, and minor combat interactions. These engagements make the game easy to follow and play, but still make it feel like the player is involved, even though they do not actually do a lot, and it would take something drastic to happen in order for them not to succeed.

Personal Rating

Despite the contents being chosen correctly, not all were executed exactly as intended. For starters, levels and cutscenes are quite long, even admitted by Torus Games themselves. In attempt to make their first big hit really good, they ended up overcompensating and making a story to gameplay ratio that was less than ideal.

The combat interactions on the other hand, were left to be too simple. Even for younger audiences, combat is extremely repetitive and requires nothing more than button mashing to make it out of any engagement.

Pros:

• Great co-op
• Good for younger and older audiences
• Nice twist on original Scooby-Doo

Cons:

• Repetitive combat situations
• Unnecessarily long levels and cutscenes
• Older game