The Spiderwick Chronicles for Nintendo DS kind of surprised me. It’s an RPG of all things, kind of similar to those Gameboy Color Harry Potter games (and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban GBA), where you don’t expect it to take this gameplay style.

The game is primarily controlled via the touch screen, though you can still use the D-Pad to move around (and start to bring up a menu, obviously). Anyway, you take control of the three kids, Jared, Simon and Mallory, though the formation varies depending on the story progression. It plays as a standard turn-based RPG (or JRPG, if you will). The overworld progression is there, where you explore the game’s environments, like forests, caves and even a junkyard. The encounters aren’t random like in a typical RPG, it’s more in line with Chrono Trigger - the enemies are visible on screen, and if you’re lucky, you can outrun some of them (or flee). The game’s main feature is fairies you can find and catch ‘em all, they’re basically consumable items, like healing fairies or thorn fairies that deal damage to the enemies. There are also a few standard items, like honey or rocks. Catching fairies is its own activity – some can be found in bushes, and tapping them will make you catch them automatically. Others are more involved, like using a berry or a flower to lure them in and gettem. Or a confuse fairy, where you have to move around in circles, I guess to confuse the fairy itself, which can be a bit tedious. Some fairies act as progression keys, from literal flying keys to lifter fairies, that allow you to lift a big rock that blocks the way, or thorn fairies to get through thorny bushes. The more you collect, the more areas you’ll be able to explore.

Now, let’s get into the meat of this game – the combat system. And it’s an interesting one. When you perform an action, you’ll be presented with a little touch screen activity – draw a circle, or tap appearing spots in the same order, or draw a quick line. They aren’t required, but doing them is beneficial – if pulled off successfully, you’ll deal more damage, or the effect of the fairies will be stronger, like healing or longer shield duration. And when you get physically attacked, the defender will flash briefly, tap them in that window, and you’ll make them block the move, which doesn’t always completely negate damage, but greatly reduces it. Successful blocks also give you a special point, later on you can exchange goblin teeth that you smash out of your foes for special moves that can use these points, stuff like healing, or attacking without fear of the enemies countering you.

But we’re not done yet, there’s actually more! The game also introduces a row system, similar to Final Fantasy games and most other RPGs, though with a twist – the character in the back row cannot attack without getting back in the front row. However, if the character in the back row gets attacked, all other characters in the front row will counter-attack the offender, though the projectile attacks cannot be countered like that. Enemies use the same tactics, of course, so you’ll want to defeat all the enemies that are in the front, without having to endure more pain than necessary. Your character in the back row isn’t totally useless – they can still use fairies and consumable items, to inflict damage or give passive effects. The game recommends using back row feature to the allies with low health, which makes sense. The game doesn’t feature a standard EXP system, you won’t see a number of EXP points pop-up, but it does track your progression – after a certain amount of battles, an level-up fairy will appear, which can be caught. Leveling up entails boosting one of the three main attributes, HP, attack power and fairy affinity. HP is pretty straightforward, and so is attack power. Fairy affinity allows to consume more fairies for stronger effects, depending on its level. Each kid has their own progression, and have a bonus to one attribute when leveling up, like how Mallory gets it easier to level up her attack power. You can choose the way you want to level up, but the game also offers a recommendation, in case you’re indecisive. I used the recommended stat boosts, and it seems adequate.

There’s a decent variety of enemies to fight, though most of them are goblins. There are goblins that throw rocks at you, or those that negate any fairy usage, making them quite nasty. There are gnomes and their robot dogs – the gnomes themselves don’t fight, instead repairing damaged robots, and will flee if all of them have been destroyed (provided it’s their turn). The bosses are generally fine too, especially the main villain themselves, as they change between different forms with different movesets, which is cool.

On the whole, the combat system feels like it’s basically Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars or Paper Mario, but 100% more touch screen. It certainly beats any generic RPG when it comes to unique features. But it’s not perfect. First, the touch screen gimmicks don’t always work right, it’s frustrating when you perform the gesture, but it doesn’t register, I think most of these are too strict on timing. Especially ones that require you to draw three straight lines, and, like… why is it so strict on time?? Second, the block mechanic is also inconsistent. Later on, there are these dragon-like enemies, and their attacks are relatively slow, giving you ample time to block their attacks. The goblin enemies found early in the game aren’t so lenient, even for tutorial sake, which is baffling. Those issues make me think that I’m not entirely convinced this touch screen style beats traditional button prompts of aforementioned titles.

I quite like the game’s overall atmosphere, being on a moody side of things. Graphically, the game is quite stylized – the backgrounds have a hand-drawn look. The game does use 3D models, like trees, beams of light or buildings, and they do stand out, because they change the perspective as you move, but they also have a stylized appearance. Here’s an example of the game’s visuals. Note that the car is a 3D model. The music is fine, fitting the game’s atmosphere.

The game has quite a bit in common with Monster House GBA - a surprisingly cool experience, similar atmosphere, and it does stand out from any regular licensed game in that it's actually kinda fun. But, just like that game, it doesn’t quite reach a level of “great”, thanks to some frustration, mostly with it’s touch screen controls. Still though, the game is above average, it has nice graphical style, unique gameplay and some engaging elements - it's clear there was some effort and thought put into this game. It can fit neatly in the category of “hidden, yet flawed, gems”.