The Peanuts Movie: Snoopy's Grand Adventure (PlayStation 4) Review

Licensed games have a potential in and of themselves right of the box: access to well-known and beloved IPs that can truly help muster emotions of nostalgia, but, also, expectations. Peanuts is an IP that, perhaps, comes with these gifts and expectations more so than others. Generations have followed the adventures of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang for ages, and many have strong memories of these cartoons and of their magical portrayal of youth.

The Peanuts Movie: Snoopy's Grand Adventure is not shy about playing at this feeling of nostalgia, adding famed elements into the game that any Peanuts fan will instantly recognise, including everything from Snoopy's costumes to how the character's personality traits are reflected upon the courses; for example, Schroeder's musical palace stage that is a big celebration to instruments and classical music, or Snoopy's own world in which he takes to the air to fight The Red Baron in one of his classic World War I flying ace daydreams.

Even in the game design, the developer has dearly cared about implementing Peanuts elements, such as how Snoopy can change costumes in the middle of the stages to earn different powers to guide him through them. It is charming and will cause warm streams of sweet nostalgia. Everything from Snoopy's moves to the aesthetic design of the levels truly breathes Peanuts.

All ingredients to create the ultimate Peanuts experience are there, including the sense of recognisable and dear memories from the show; however, that is sadly one of few strong suits of the game. While the setting and levels build upon references to the Peanuts comic, little else of its capturing magic has rubbed off onto the game.

The biggest problem rests in how boring and dull it grows after a while, due to some problematic design choices. The biggest offender is the fact that to complete stages to 100 percent by finding all collectibles, it is very often necessary to backtrack through almost the entire game after a certain point is reached. This is bad, as the levels in themselves are simply not that fun to replay, due to complete lack of challenge or other interesting aspects and mechanics that normally offer replay value, except for the Peanuts references. There is not a single part of the game that feels even remotely challenging or rewarding to complete, and feels like a chore to see the next world, and, ultimately, the ending.

The mechanics, save for the costume change, feels uninspired, boring, and generic, and stays similar throughout most of the game, save for a couple of worlds that initially feel refreshing. More is needed, however, to make it justifiable for a player to not only replay a stage, but also visit every corner of the map on their hunt after the collectibles. It is a shame, as, normally, collectibles are a fun way to make games last longer and can be more challenging for those who seek it, but that is completely eliminated when not even that is difficult, but rather annoying, as the player has to wait over half the game until they can even start thinking about collecting everything.

The Peanuts Movie: Snoopy's Grand Adventure capitalises very well upon the nostalgia that being a game based upon the beloved Peanuts franchise bestows upon it, but fails to meet the expectations. It is a decent 2D platformer that has much more potential than it utilises. Between ridiculous amounts of backtracking and levels that barely stand to be played through more than once, though, it is easy to lose patience if hunting for all collectibles. Much more could have been done with this title, but for what it is, it is a decent Peanuts title that fans might find enjoyable, if only to meet up with the beloved Peanuts characters.