Invizimals: The Lost Kingdom Review

Invizimals: The Lost Kingdom is probably one of the most formulaic games ever created. This may be a child-oriented title, but that’s no excuse for this repetitive, clunky and quite frankly boring excuse for an adventure game. Bad game design is bad game design, no matter how you try and justify it.

Magenta Software’s kid-friendly adventure title doesn’t border on broken or buggy. It’s playable, but unless you have kids, are a child or, for some reason, like games for children, there’s no reason to pay any attention to Invizimals. Even if you do count yourself as a member of one of the above, it’s hard to recommend it, as rarely does it rise above the realms of average.

You play as Hiro, an obnoxious little whelp who’s a member of some super secret organisation that investigates and researches Invizimals - a species that resides in a different realm. After a short live action introduction - one so cringeworthy, it makes EastEnders look like a Scorsese epic - you make your way to the Invizimal homeworld to find out why the creatures are behaving strangely. 

So begins your paint-by-numbers journey across Invizimal land to rid its inhabitants of some lazily-designed robotic invaders, i.e. Steel Invizimals. Upon your arrival, you’re greeted by Ocelotl, a friendly, bipedal cheetah-esque animal who, after being introduced by the bellowing voice of Brian Blessed, grants you his power: access to the main gimmick of The Lost Kingdom.

Hiro’s quite useless on his own, and aside from some uninspired platforming sections where you’re required to be human - crawling sluggishly through tunnels and shimmying across ledges to name just two - your time will be spent taking on the form of several different Invizimals in a system akin to 2005’s Kameo.

Ocelotl is the first of these conduits you use to progress throughout the game world, and your introduction to most of the shallow mechanics on offer. Progress involves a linear path through each location while tackling enemies and collecting Z-sparks (energy used to upgrade the moveset of each Invizimal).

Mapped to the four face buttons, combat feels awfully clunky and basic. Light, heavy and special attacks all work with the tap of a button, but there’s no flow (or challenge) to smashing the tin cans you encounter - you can literally stand on one spot and mash the controller until everything is turned to scrap.

Special attacks have obviously been included to add some excitement to combat - and they do, somewhat - but you’ll quickly realise that each Invizimal moveset has almost identical attacks, just slightly altered aesthetically.

And acquiring each one of these new, furry, scaly and leathery ‘Mals offers equally little in terms of variation. Encountering each one initiates a short QTE (quick time event) cinematic where you best, and subsequently acquire, their powers, awarding access to a unique ability needed to progress through the following stage. These take the form of dash attacks that smash barriers or further QTE sections where you zap between several jump platforms, and they would be great if they led to secret areas or the abilities were varied across each Invizimal, but most serve little purpose other than to slow down progress in a really monotonous way.

Rinse and repeat this ten times over - with two glitchy boss battles and on-rails sections thrown in for good [bad] measure -and you have Invizimals’ description in a nutshell. Not that you’d want to anyway, but there’s little incentive to play through the experience a second time. You may enjoy the cutesy pastel-themed colour palette of the level design, but that’s hardly reason to subject yourself to boredom a second time

There is a multiplayer component that lets you battle quadrupedal Invizimals in arena-style clashes, but to purchase new characters or upgrades, you need a second currency that you gather from the single-player component. It may grant a few hours of fun, but slogging through the story mode again simply isn’t worth it. Besides that, it’s hardly a long shot to say that within a few weeks, it’s doubtful you will be able to find anyone to battle with online anyway.

The Lost Kingdom may be borderline enjoyable for young gamers who perhaps don’t know any better, but this title is largely a bore. If your child is clamouring for something new to play, this isn’t something you want to gift them; there’s much better out there.