So I was a MASSIVE fan of Winnie the Pooh as a kid. However, by the time this came out, I was like, 12-ish, and that's KIDS STUFF. So I never experiences this era of Winnie the Pooh, it was just a bit beyond me at that point. But since I'm trying to play a bunch of Gamecube stuff, hey, it seemed easy enough. How hard could this fucking early kids Pooh game be?????
So it's based on Piglet's Big Adventure, though it seems like it goes along its own storyline. Piglet gets up in his feels and runs away from home. As he leaves the Hundred Acre Wood, he finds a telescope and looks back on his friends, and sees them dreaming. He can then ENTER their dreams, like he's Freddie Fucking Kreuger, and making their anxieties and nightmares go away!
The game is six worlds, one for all his friends (Minus Kanga, who is I guess off getting smashed or something), and then a final world. Each world is themed around a dream of the friend, so Pooh's dream is a bunch of food and candy, Tigger's is a snowy carnival. The worlds have fun theming. You wander around the worlds with the SLOWEST run cycle ever, and basically solve what I can only describe as Survival Horror-esque puzzles, but for kids. Take this item and find the place to use it in. Turn all the valves to unlock the way. Push these blocks correctly.
Frankly, this game is Baby's First Survival Horror. The entire game is written in the language of horror. It's set angled rooms, often at a fucking dutch angle. You're solving weird puzzles in scary dream-like worlds, ESPECIALLY as you get further in, and ESPECIALLY in Eeyore's dream. And then there's the combat, which involves Heffalumps and Woozles who are slowly walking towards Piglet. You then input a button combination at the bottom, and if you put it in correctly, Piglet does a Scary Face to spook them. Some of these faces are EXTREMELY offputting, like the one where Piglet fucking snaps his neck and spins around moaning. NOT A GOD DAMN JOKE. I half expected one where Piglet's eyes glow red and he floats off the ground, speaking in tongues.
The horror only became worse when I got to the glitches. The final world has some glitches in it where I fell through the ground, and then the camera zoomed in on the ground, and you could hear Piglet whimper a bit. It was HORRIFYING. The final level in general is stunningly difficult compared to the rest of the game. It's on a time limit, and there's not a lot of room to maneuver, so you can't set up fights super easily. For kids!
Oh I also forgot to mention Bravest of All mode. After you beat a dream you can go back and defeat all the Woozles and Heffalumps by touching them. This seems fine, but they run away from you, and you gotta lead them into corners. And there's a time limit. And rooms are real big. And I DID mention Piglet is slow as a mother fucker. It's more frustrating than anything else.
The game is just kinda okay, if you ignore how scary it is. It's for very young kids, and for them, I'm sure it'd pretty fun. Plus it's got all the Pooh characters you know and love, lovingly voiced, and it looks pretty good for that era too, though there were a few uh, G-mod-ish glitches faces every now and then that freaked me out. Weirdly creepy game.