Dora the Explorer: Super Spies

The Good
The scenery and the sprites are colourful and look just like the kids' show including some awesome stills for cutscenes. There's decent, yet repetitive music to keep the mood going and a generous number of speech from Dora herself. It is relatively easy to get the hang of the controls. The variety of gadgets adds to game mechanics to make traversing around the levels more interesting, although many levels require you to replay them after you get the right gadgets.

The Bad
While the graphics are good, in some parts the scenery looks like you can jump on it, but you find out that you can't. The platforming isn't tight or right at all. Dora moves at a snail's pace dragging her feet over the course of the level. Swimming is even slower that you don't even want to get into the water. There are some jumps you can't make easily and edge detection of ledges is jerky, making you fall quite a lot. Dora can't even jump off a ladder, which restricts what routes you can take. It's much more fun to play as Boots, who can double jump and climb a whole lot better. And if you're carrying gems, try not to bump into enemies otherwise you'll drop them and have to pick them up again, and if that happens in water, you lose the gems forever.

The Bottom Line
While the material of the game is quite faithful to the TV show, the game is lacking in many spaces and places. Makes for a fun little story, but boy does the game drag on for what seems like weeks. This game is more a test of patience than a fun and thrill pleasure. If only the designers thought to put some fun facts, teaching material and maybe a Spanish phrasebook to make it as educational as the cartoon. Any child who got this cartridge will get bored of it in a matter of short time and want to go back to their television for something more entertaining. Skip this title.