The animation is jerky, the five minigames tedious, the game's character portraits and short sound bytes reused ad naseum. But the worst part of Dreamcatcher's "Inkheart" is that you will never truly find out what's going on. It's confusing enough that there are no real transitions from one movie-inspired locale to the next, just a hasty cut. But the fact that after the bad guy is vanquished and the three-hour quest has come to an end, you or your child will still have no idea what the plot, its characters, and the book Inkheart itself are really about -- for $30, that's downright infuriating.
WP: "It's hard to imagine that a game about great writing come to life could feature stiff, bland characters with completely wooden and unnatural dialogue and no compelling action. Instead of instilling an interesting in literature, Inkheart makes boring fiction writhe and suffer on the Nintendo DS' two tiny screens."
Snackbar Games writes: "Inkheart for the DS is attempting to capture the magic of the movie based on the book (about a book), but the problem is that a video game, especially one with such terrible graphics, isn't an appropriate medium to do so".
Gamernode writes: "Books and movies don't often translate into magnificent videogames, and Inkheart is no exception. This DS adventure will not be winning any GN Nodie Awards this year, yet still maintains a few redeeming qualities and will appeal to less experienced gamers."
