Peanuts: Snoopy’s Grand Adventure

Very few games now a days are really kid and adult friendly at the same time. What I mean by that is, the game is easy enough for kids to play alone, and entertaining enough for adults to participate – or play alone themselves! Peanuts: Snoopy’s Grand Adventure is the PERFECT example of this. Before someone points out that Nintendo has many games that fit this build, I say yes…but no. My four year old nephew can EASILY play Snoopy’s Grand Adventure, with a little bit of help from myself. My six year old son? He’s beaten the game already on Xbox One, and will be tackling the 3DS version on an upcoming vacation trip.

Unfortunately, these games do not come around often. Snoopy’s Grand Adventure provides easy platforming for kids, while adding collectibles that give an added difficulty curve for adults. Each level – spread across 6 detailed worlds – in Snoopy has hundreds of peanuts to collect, as well as 5 scouts. These items are not impossible to fetch, but often a second or third play through was required to locate and grab each and every collectible. The story is pretty lackluster, but ultimately serves as the catalyst for the many levels and worlds you will travel through. The only downside here is that finding all your friends could take you as little as 3 to 4 hours.

Snoopy’s Grand Adventure does not just excel in gameplay, but in audio and visuals as well. The title is very vibrant, across each and every world. The music always fits the environment, with frequent – although not annoyingly so – pieces of the classic Peanuts theme song.

This title is hard to review, not because it’s bad, but because it’s not very deep. You are getting a fairly basic experience here, but a damn good one. Enemies are few and far between, but when they do dot the landscape, you better believe they serve an alternative purpose. Whether it is reaching new heights or using them to bounce over gaps, the developers were careful to make them useful for an experience gamer, but not necessary for a novice. In almost every situation, when enemies could be utilized in a level, it was for finding collectibles, not for advancing in the stage.

There are a lot of other neat – although often under utilized – concepts in Snoopy’s Grand Adventure. There are a number of suits that can be collected and used, one of which allows Snoopy to glide through the air for an extended period of time. There is also an excellent multiplayer mode where one player controls Snoopy while another controls his winged friend Woodstock. Some of my best gaming memories of this year are playing through this title with my son.

If I was playing this game alone, I probably would not score it very high! At the end of the day, it is insanely short and ultimately not that difficult. HOWEVER, the enjoyment and excitement I saw out of my son and nephew while they played makes this an easy recommendation for anyone with kids. It really is a great, family platforming game, and gets a solid 7.5/10 from us.