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Neopets PetPet Adventures: The Wand of Wishing

When Pojo emailed me and asked me to review a PSP game for him, I was quite excited. My ego inflated as I thought he finally viewed me as a video game expert. Unfortunately, my ego burst like a balloon when he told me I was the only person he knew with a PSP and that’s why he chose me! Even if he couldn’t see my expertise in video games, I took on the assignment because he is the boss and I was excited to see what game he wanted me to review. He handed me Neopets PetPet Adventures: The Wand of Wishing. I won’t lie, my excitement dwindled a bit because I knew nothing of Neopets and because looking at the cover, it looked like I would be playing as a bunch of teddy bears. I should have remembered what Pojo taught me; never judge a game by its cover. I mean, he was the one who recommended all the Pokemon games for the Gameboy advance, (which took many hours of my life and I still haven’t caught them all) so I gave him the benefit of the doubt, reviewed the game, and was pleasantly surprised.

Neopets PetPet Adventures: The Wand of Wishing is an action role playing game. You are able to build up your characters like a RPG but the fighting is happening in real time, think of something like Kingdom Hearts for the PS2. The game opens up with the bad guy, who looks like Shrek on roid rage, cornering a gypsy woman demanding that she gives him the wand of wishing. The wand would grant its user any wish. The villain’s petpet gets the wand away from the gypsy woman and falls into a hidden portal and disappears. The gypsy’s petpet (that would be you) leaps into the portal after the wand and that is where the adventure begins. You start off going through a helpful tutorial which explains the way the game works. Obviously your main quest is to get back the wand of wishing (or else the game would have a different title) but during your adventure you meet and talk to a bunch of townsfolk who also need your help.

The Good: The best thing about The Wand of Wishing is that it gives you choices. Right as the game begins you have to choose your petpet. You have 4 petpets to choose from, each of them having different strengths or weaknesses. I chose Mazzew, the strongest petpet but not very good with magic. Other choices you have are your weapons. There are a number of weapons to choose from in the game, as well as armour, and magic items. Another option you have is the order in which you choose to complete the quests. You don’t have to go for the wand of wishing right away, you could help a number of townsfolk first and then go for the wand. I also liked the game because I enjoy playing games where the character stats improve based on your actions and decisions. Towns have masters who will train you to improve your attributes. (I’ve played a game like that before, towns having trainers who give you knew abilities, I’ll have to ask Pojo if he knows the game).

The Bad: One flaw I experienced while playing the game is the camera view. You play the game through bird’s eye view, with the option to rotate the camera right and left. Unfortunately, the camera can’t zoom in or away. At times I was fighting the enemy and I couldn’t even see them because there was a tree in the way.

Another thing that upset me a little, (okay a lot) is that there were times that I was getting shot at and the enemies weren’t even on the screen. Sometimes those arrows hit barrels which exploded and I was toast.

Overall: I would definitely recommend The Wand of Wishing. I am someone who knows nothing of Neopets and I enjoyed the game. True fans of Neopets would have a blast. The load times aren’t that bad but that’s not fault of The Wand of Wishing, more of the PSP. Remember, see past the cuteness of these petpets and you have a pretty good game underneath.

GOJO signing off