“The Little Mermaid” is directed by Oscar® nominee Rob Marshall (“Chicago,” “Mary Poppins Returns”)with a screenplay by two-time Oscar nominee David Magee (“Life of Pi,” “Finding Neverland”). The film stars singer and actress Halle Bailey (“grown-ish”) as Ariel Jonah Hauer-King (“A Dog’s Way Home”) as Prince Eric Tony Award® winner Daveed Diggs (“Hamilton”) as the voice of Sebastian Awkwafina (“Raya and the Last Dragon”) as the voice of Scuttle Jacob Tremblay (“Luca”) as the voice of Flounder Noma Dumezweni (“Mary Poppins Returns”) as Queen Selina Art Malik (“Homeland”) as Sir Grimsby with Oscar® winner Javier Bardem (“No Country for Old Men”) as King Triton and two-time Academy Award® nominee Melissa McCarthy (“Can You Ever Forgive Me?” “Bridesmaids”) as Ursula. She makes a deal with the evil sea witch, Ursula, which gives her a chance to experience life on land but ultimately places her life – and her father’s crown – in jeopardy. The youngest of King Triton’s daughters and the most defiant, Ariel longs to find out more about the world beyond the sea and, while visiting the surface, falls for the dashing Prince Eric. While mermaids are forbidden to interact with humans, Ariel must follow her heart. “The Little Mermaid” is the beloved story of Ariel, a beautiful and spirited young mermaid with a thirst for adventure. Just like that original image, it holds a lot of promise for a static screen - I’m very excited to see that one spring to life onscreen too. Planet of Lana began as a single picture, but my demo ends on another: Lana and Mui staring across a truly vast world, with a gigantic, ominous ship hovering on the horizon. Walking through Planet of Lana’s forests and climbing its cliffs purposely invokes the spirit of a Studio Ghibli film, with all the sense of natural wonder and youthful adventure that entails. Wishfully has blended painterly backdrops, block-color protagonists, and 3D interactive elements, but somehow created a world that feels whole out of such disparate parts. It will help that the game is quite so pretty. In a game that should take 6 hours to finish, that will be key to sustaining player momentum, but the signs are good. Stjärnljus says he and the team - who have worked on the game for 5 years - have taken real pains to balance the feeling of puzzles that take thought to solve, without feeling obtuse. The puzzles in my demo feel well-drawn and interesting, and while solutions aren’t immediately obvious, the key interactive elements always were. If a robot catches you, it’s an instant kill, but this feels far from trial-and-error. The second is more in-depth - you need to send Mui into a hole in the ground, alerting the enemy, allowing you first sneak past, then lure it under a bundle of logs and crush it by having Mui cut a rope. The first sees a robot patrolling, sending Lana and Mui scuttling through long grass to stealth past. These aren’t so much battles as heightened puzzles. The majority of my demo is about platformer puzzle solving - Lana uses Mui to attract an alien creature with a rock on its back, allowing her to cross an otherwise impassable gap, or helps disconnect an electrical connection, allowing Mui to cut a cord and create a means of getting atop a cliff.īut the invading robots do make appearances - and with them, wonderful stabs of orchestral soundtrack that fill the otherwise diegetic noise. That also makes its moments of actual threat feel genuinely frightening. The bond feels strong, even in the game’s earliest stages. Lana chatters to Mui in an invented language (which Stjärnljus tells me has real meaning behind it - he hopes diehard fans will attempt to translate it after release) and Mui chirps back. Where this could feel mournful, it’s clear developer Wishfully intends this to feel more like an adventure than a horror. Together, they traverse a planet invaded by robots for reasons unknown - leaving Lana the only human we see, at least in the early stages.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |