The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Defeat Evil, Free Narnia!

NA release: 14th November 2005
EU release: 31st March 2006
JP release: N/A
Developer: Traveller’s Tales
Publisher: Buena Vista Games
NGC Magazine Score: 80%
Mods Used: Widescreen Hack

The Chronicles of Narnia solidified the era of “kids discover the world is magic” era of films, bringing the classic book series to the big screen. This actually takes some inspiration from the videogame adaptation of The Two Towers, by having scenes from the film turn into in-game cutscenes. Although, due to the character models, it’s always disturbing when it happens due to the character models.

You can tell that this was created by a side team at Traveller’s Tales who was noticing how well Lego Star Wars was progressing by the main team, and decided to base their film tie-in on a similar style. The thing is, The Chronicles of Narnia takes itself a bit more seriously than Lego Star Wars and it just doesn’t work. The first level opens up with a serious cutscene of Nazi planes dropping bombs on London during The Blitz then immediately followed by you controlling the kids, performing ballet spins to attack furniture to collect giant coins while everyone is screaming about having to get to the bomb shelter.

Once you get to Narnia, it’s not quite as ridiculous, although it’s just boring – it’s a Lego Star Wars style game with absolutely none of the charm, and a lot more enemies to fight, with sections where the kids have to kill waves of wolves with their bare hands. Although the three older kids eventually get weapons, the youngest, Lucy, still kills everything with a shoulder barge.

To break through obstacles, you’ll need to perform team up moves, with two main ones in general: one where you throw Lucy and use her as a bowling ball or one where Edmund is spun around and his head is used to break rocks. With the visuals trying to look like the film, it looks absurd, but I suppose it’s the only enjoyment you’ll get from this.

Poor

Sadly, the game loses its way in the later levels, devolving into overly difficult and repetitive combat. Granted, it allows you to make full use of all those powers and abilities you’ve bought, but it nonetheless becomes something of a grind and loses a lot of charm as a result.
Jes Bickham, NGC Magazine #119

Remake or remaster?

Not for this.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to get The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe