Countryside Bears/Winkey, The Little Bear (Phoenix Games/Dingo Pictures)

How the heck did Phoenix Games get away with making a rip-off of a box office bomb Disney movie?

Countryside Bears, also known as Winkey, The Little Bear in the Dingo Pictures' re-release, or as some fans call it, Wabuu 2, is a "Video Game"/"Movie" made by the infamous Phoenix Games and Dingo Pictures, and was released in 2004 for the PlayStation 2. Many fans considered this as the sequel to Wabuu, the Little Racoon, due to how Wabuu makes an appearance, takes up most of the screen-time, and also explains his backstory about that past adventure.

Plot

Taking place after the previous adventures, Wabuu comes across a group of bears who are playing with a young female Roo name Mii, but after being flown away on an umbrella, Wabuu must find a way to save her.

Why This Game Sucks

1. This "video game" is not really a game, it's just a collection of mini-games and a movie, much like Nice Cats.
2. Horrendous voice-acting, while having more voice actors then previously, it's still not that good in that while having three-to-four actors, most of them will voice two other characters, while given that character the same exact voice as when they would voice that other character, with both Wiener and Pat having the same voice, due to them sharing the same voice actress, and both Yodel and Teddy having the same voice, due to them sharing the same voice actor.
   1. Even more frustrating, despite clearly having both male actors and female actresses in this "movie", they have the female actress voice Grumpy Bear, who is a male character!
3. It's a shameful rip-off of the flopped live-action Disney movie, Country Bears, and even rips off the 1985 Disney animated classic show, Adventures of the Gummi Bears.
4. Very poor plots, with not much happening for the first one-third of the first arc.
5. Absolutely terrible animation, much like other Dingo Pictures film made previously.
6. Loads of animation errors, with one being Teddy's right pupil glitching.
7. Lazy character models that are recycled from Wabuu, which was made by the same company. Heck, even Grumpy Bear is a recolored version of the black bear, only with overalls and boots.
8. Misleading Box-Arts:
   1. In both versions of the game and re-release as a movie, the box arts make it show that it has decent animation, when instead it's the typical Dingo Pictures-style Animation.
      1. On that note, the box-art for Winkey, The Little Bear also looks SUPER dated, and from the way its made, makes it look more like a cover for a book that was created in the mid-1980s then a box-art of a film made in 2004.
   2. Despite either the Countryside Bears, Moh and Mii, in the Phoenix Games version, or Winkey, in the Dingo Pictures re-release version, taken up most of the box-arts, they are not the main characters of the film, with Winkey not even making an appearance, though Teddy could be the one that the title reference to as Winkey, given that the back of the box-art states that he borrowed Grumpy's rain coat, which is what Teddy does in the film, instead, most of it centers around Wabuu, hints why this film is considered Wabuu 2 by many fans.
9. Very poor soundtrack, in which Wabuu's song overlaps with the song he just sang.
10. Many scenes drags on way too much, with not much happening for ten seconds or more.
11. Poor lip-syncing with characters flapping their lips when no words are coming out.
12. Moh and Mii are blatant rip-offs of Kanga and Roo from Winnie The Pooh.
13. Plot-Holes:
    1. Why do Teddy and Mii have to take umbrellas during a windstorm?
    2. How can Teddy preforming spinning while flying ion the air during a wind storm?
    3. Why doesn't Moh just look up to take notice of her daughter flying?
    4. After Mii falls into a hole, during the first 3 minutes, it creates a very "dynamic" tone for all of the characters, yet all Mii had to do was jump out of the hole, Mii is a baby Kangaroo, animals that are known to jump at great highs, why couldn't she have done that previously??
    5. Why did the rabbit make a hole that large?
14. Unlikable characters, with Grumpy being the worst as he shows no concerns of Mii and Teddy's safety and only caring about his umbrella.
15. Throughout most of the film, there's this crow that appears and flies, yet it barely contributes to the plot, and is a background character.
16. Terrible pacing, most of the plot happens way too fast, yet it goes way too slow. There are also times in which the characters would just talk about what happen for a minute straight and not much happens.
17. Around 28 minutes into the film, there's a flashback sequence of Wabuu's previous adventure before meeting with the countryside bears, which is actually a shorten version of Wabuu, The Little Racoon, not only is it an unnecessary ark as Players would already know how the story goes should they have played/watch Wabbu, the Little Racoon previously, but that takes up the rest of the movie before the ending, you can remove this scene, and it would impact nothing.
18. Laughable dialogue for most of the characters, such as Moh saying: If they jump, they're bound to hu-nj-in themselves!
19. Much like Janis/Jamie, the Little Pig, the film has no focus whatsoever, as it constantly keeps switching plots around to get to the 41 minute mark. During the first 13 minutes, the film seems to be about Wabuu playing with the country bears, and rescuing Mii and Teddy from a Windstorm, but later on its about some large hole created by a rabbit that Mii accidentally falls into, but end up fine and hops right out of it, which by the way only lasts for 3 minutes, and THEN it's about Grumpy Bear having a leg injury, for no reason, Wabuu and others picking flowers to plant on Grumpy's yard for the bees to make more honey, and Wabuu telling a story to the cast of his previous adventures before liven with the countryside bears, which basically takes up the rest of the film. So much like Janis/Jamie previously, this makes the film suffer from numerous plot-holes, as described in the #13 segment, and inconsistencies scattered throughout the experience.
20. Very bad timing for both incidents:
    1. Despite Countryside Bears looking more like a computer game, this is a PlayStation 2 game that was released in 2004, also known as the same year that Dragon Quest VIII, Doom 3, Ninja Gaiden, as in the 3D hack 'n slash game made for the Xbox, Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater, Monster Hunter, etc. were made/released BEFORE Countryside Bears, and they look ten times better than this.
    2. Even though Winkey, The Little Bear looks more like something out of the early 80's, this film was made in 2004, and previous animated/anime films such as Teacher's Pet: The Movie, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Howl's Moving Castle, Bionicle 2: Legends of Metru Nui and The Incredibles came out the same year, all five of which look miles better than Winkey, The Little Bear.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The scene in which Mii feeds Teddy honey after the latter fell out of the tree, due to Grumpy's blanket not probably being held by the characters is a cute and sweet moment.
2. At least this game has more voice actors than the previous ones, and this is saying a lot, making the game a bit of an improvement.

Reception

Much like Janis/Jamie the Little Pig and Nice Cats, Countryside Bears/Winkey the Little Bear was critically panned by fans and critics alike for its poor qualities.