For those of you under the age of 60, Snoopy & The Great Mystery Club might be a mystery in itself. Who is Snoopy? Why does he have a game in his name, and who the heck is this Charlie Brown guy???
Peanuts was a syndicated cartoon strip in newspapers from 1950 and ending in 2000, and featured Charlie Brown and his dog Snoopy. The only movie appeared in 2015, and a 37-episode cartoon series ran from 2014-2016. I can but wonder why this game was green-lighted, and where the perceived audience is. Thankfully it's a pleasant little adventure game, with a few easy puzzles, QTEs (Quick Time Events) and driving/flying sections.
Snoopy, with his constant companion Woodstock (a tiny yellow bird), has standard movement controls on the left stick, with most actions performed with 'A'. To get around a bit faster, you can hold 'X'. There are also bus stops dotted around to allow for fast travel.
You unlock various costumes as you progress, With the Sherlock Holmes-inspired Detective outfit equipped, 'RT' is Sighting (highlights clues) and 'LT' is Pathfinding (you can see footprints).
You soon notice mounds of dirt and leaves all over the town. These can be dug up or cleared with Snoopy's Pirate outfit (for digging up treasure) and Gardener outfit (complete with leaf blower.)
There's a lot of following tracks and fetch & carry tasks like "you can have the thingy you need, but can you find my whatsit first". This game will literally have you running around in circles or going straight back where you just came from–so if you find that sort of gameplay irritating you'd best stay away.
As I mentioned earlier, there are some simplistic soapbox and biplane racing sections, baseball pitching and goal kicking. There's a QTE-based mixing game and a sort-of "Piano Hero" music game, all of which advance the game at certain points. Gather enough "evidence" for each of the 4 mysteries and you get to play a sort of deduction mini game where you pick which items are most pertinent, prove what happened and solve the case.
Apart from a couple of frame rate judders during cut scenes (I'll never understand how those occur) this is a visually pleasing game that's faithful to the source material. It's a pleasant little adventure that needed more variety, and the constant too-ing and fro-ing soon became a chore. It might have been more interesting if you'd actually played as Woodstock, Charlie Brown, Sally, Peppermint Patty, Linus, Pig Pen, Schroeder, Lucy, Marcie, Violet and all. I'd also like to know where the market is, septegenarian/octagenarian gamers? Do the kids I presume the game is aimed at even know who Snoopy & Charlie Brown are? Do they care? Why are we here?
Thanks to Cradle Games, GameMill Entertainment, and PressEngine