The Smurfs on Nintendo 3DS, Smurfing good gaming fun

Hey, we received a copy of the game for review, all thoughts are our own. No Smurfing way. Your favorite friendly blue characters have found themselves in a predicament. They’ve gone for a walk in the forest only to come back and find their entire village destroyed! All of their trademark mushroom houses are reduced to ripped up fungi, as well as the scaled down tables, chairs and everything else. Thankfully they live in a forest where the Smurfs can go out and gather wood, rocks and other materials to build it all again. Or rather, you can rebuild Smurf village and hopefully find out who smashed it all to bits.

When you start The Smurfs game on Nintendo 3DS there is literally nothing. The village consists of three structures that you can see that are piles of rubble.  Players get things rolling by cutting down some logs in the forest. From there you’ll go back and forth to the quarry , getting rocks, decorating newly built Smurf homes, discovering new music, meeting new Smurfs and playing a variety of mini-games.

The mini-games and discovering the creature comforts in the game are important because without doing so you can’t move forward. If you try to do so you’ll receive a friendly Smurf message letting you know that they care about the Smurf morale and that doing those things will improve it. The first couple of times I encountered this message I was agitated because I wanted to get things cracking.

When our 6YO played the game his experience was very different. He loved the fact that he had to decorate the houses, find new music and meet new blue friends.  As the game progresses you still chop wood to move things forward, but you chop less of it and you  find lots of new activities that use the stylus to move, cut or smash.

One feature of The Smurfs that really stands out is the 3D. It’s important to note that the 3D is not for children 6 or under. Players over that age will discover smurftastic images that really pop off the screen.  Some of the mini-games also make great use of the two screens, allowing things to start on the upper one, where you have to work in tandem with the lower one to catch what was thrown down.

In a way, The Smurfs is all about the mini-games that add up to further the entire game. Once you get past the initial parts of building Papa Smurf’s house the game takes off and the variety kicks in. You’ll grow vegetables, engage in speed challenges and dig into the classic Smurfs. A quick search of ‘how to’ regarding the deeper sections of the game reveals that it’s quite challenging to accomplish some of the tasks. This will certainly interest older game players who might tire quickly of some of the seemingly mundane tasks that you have to do initially. Players will also encounter more danger and ‘real’ activities that’ll motivate them to play longer, it’s amazing what a sense of danger does to liven up an all ages video game.

Bottom line: The Smurfs on Nintendo 3DS has lots to offer for gamers. It starts slow, but has buckets of Smurftastic mini-games, sharp graphics and very effective 3D effects to keep middle school gamers engaged in a classic franchise. Older gamers will enjoy the challenges deeper in the game. The Smurfs game on Nintendo 3DS is rated E and playable in 2D and 3D. It’s recommended for ages 7 and up when playing in 3D. Our 6YO plays the game (with the 3D off of course) and likes it just fine and his 4YO brother tries to play, but usually ends up being frustrated. Bonus, at only $16, it’s a low cost distraction for the kids that will take lots of hours to finish.