Pinocchio (Phoenix Games)

Note: This should not be confused with the 1940 Walt Disney animated film of the same name, or the 2022 live-action film of the same name as well.

Pinocchio
"Oh, no! Now I'm turning donkey!"
Genre(s): Puzzle Platform(s): PlayStation 2 Wii Nintendo DS Release: PlayStation 2 EU: December 8, 2006 AU: May 18, 2007 Wii EU: May 8, 2009 Nintendo DS EU: 2009 Developer(s): Aqua Pacific Publisher(s): Phoenix Games

Pinocchio is a Video Game made by the infamous Phoenix Games, it came out in 2006 and was released for the PlayStation 2.

Summery

A kindhearted old man named Geppetto creates a wooden toy puppet name Pinocchio from a log to be his son, but instead of going to school, like a good puppet, Pinocchio goes on his own adventure.

Why This Game Turns Us Donkey

1. To address the Elephant-In-The-Room: This game is a clear rip-off of the Walt Disney film "Pinocchio", right down to the character models in the front of the cover art having the same design as their Disney counterparts.
2. Much like Nice Cats, The Dalmatians, Countryside Bears, Animal Soccer World and Snow White and the 7 Clever Boys previously, this "game" is not really a game, it's just a collection of mini-games and a movie.
   1. Speaking of which, the mini-games are more poorly made, more so than the previous 5 installments:
      1. In the matching tiles game, when the player picks the wrong tile, the arrow will make a weird car-like honking noise EVERY TIME it happens, which gets annoying.
      2. The sliding tiles game gets replaced by a swap 'n flip game with a video clip, which is too ridiculously easy, even for mini-game standards.
      3. The painting game will freeze, the moment the player started up before placing a color on the picture, and then the game crashes.
3. Misleading cover art.
   1. The cover art makes it show that the game has 3D animation, when instead it's 2D Animation.
   2. Despite the character models looking like their Disney counterparts, they are completely different in the film.
   3. Jiminy Cricket appears on the cover art, yet he makes no appearance in this film, nor is he even mentioned.
4. Very poor animation of the film, which ripped straight out of an old 1990's cartoon, and similar to Snow White and the 7 Clever Boys, it has a combination of two types of animation: ugly two-dimensional and absolutely horrible three-dimensional animation.
5. The film decides to "keep" the scene, where Pinocchio is hung from Carlo Collodi's original book, which was not included in the Disney movie for obvious reasons. The only difference is that he's hung up by his overalls, and not a noose.
6. Terrible voice acting, with two of the characters, Pinocchio and the blue haired fairy, having the same voice, due to them being voiced by the narrator, he doesn't even try to give the blue haired fairy a more female-like voice, and instead gives her a MALE voice, like when he would voice Pinocchio.
   1. It also don't help that the characters were all voice by the same Narrator that also narrated "Snow White and the 7 Clever Boys", another game that Phoenix Games previous made.
7. There are very few rosters of characters in this film, having only seven-to-eight in total, with Pinocchio, Geppetto and the blue haired fairy getting more screen time then most of the characters, while both the puppets, director, and the fox and cat criminals only have a few screen shots, and the ticket reception only having two scenes.
8. Two times throughout the film, there are these three toys that randomly appear to do a sing-a-long, yet they don't contribute to the plot.
   1. On that note, there's a sleeping boy that appears in both the intro and ending, yet he also doesn't contribute the plot of the film.
9. Unlikable characters, with, ironically, the title character, Pinocchio, being the worst.
10. There's a random scene where before Geppetto decided to give Pinocchio a name, Pinocchio gets an EXTREMELY creepy, and nasty grin on his face for no reason, whatsoever.
11. Multiple errors in the film of the game.
    1. Most, if not all, of the characters will randomly move their lips for lines that don't match up on what they're saying.
    2. Geppetto makes a statement that the puppet he makes will "cheer him up when he gets old", even though he looks like an old man.
    3. The narrator stats that three nasty criminals stop Pinocchio, yet there are only two.
    4. During the scene were the fox criminal specks, his left eye remains still while the rest of his face moves.
    5. When Pinocchio "is turning donkey", he's shown to have donkey ears, then later on donkey hooves on both his hands and feet, and a donkey tail, but in the scene, where he's about to be eaten by a giant shark, Pinocchio is shown to have normal ears, and after getting eaten by said shark were he meets Geppetto, Pinocchio is now shown to have donkey ears, but now have normal hands and feet.
12. Very weird and bizarre dialogue (ex. the three toys saying, "there'll be children on your adventures!" and characters saying words in a long and large tone).
13. The film is only 7 minutes long.
14. There are noticeable plot-holes throughout the film, that are never explained, most of which you will have no idea of what's going on, unless you watch the original 1940 Walt Disney film:
    1. How did Pinocchio come to life after being built by Geppetto?
    2. Why did Pinocchio snatch Geppetto's wig, wears it, laughs, and then runs out of the house?
    3. When Pinocchio goes to a random puppet theater, the three puppets immediately recognized him, how the heck did they recognize Pinocchio, despite him being created by Geppetto just yesterday?
    4. Where did the random duo of a fox and cat criminals come from, and what happens to the Fox and Cat criminals after they rob Pinocchio?
    5. When, where, and why is Pinocchio at a fair?
    6. Who's this random kid that pulls Pinocchio?
    7. At one point, Pinocchio says "I won't go with you!", yet they never explain who he's talking to.
    8. When did Pinocchio get turn into a donkey?
    9. When, where and why was Geppetto eaten by a shark?
    10. How can both Pinocchio and Geppetto all fit inside the shark, and how the heck did they escape it?
    11. How can Pinocchio swim even though he's a WOODEN puppet, and how the heck can he carry a full grown man?
15. This "film" tries too hard to be a poem of some kind, with Pinocchio and the three toys singing and rhyming.
16. No real villain, besides the fox and cat criminals, and even then, after they rob Pinocchio, they are never seen or mentioned again, what's even worse, is that they suffer no consequences for robbing Pinocchio and get off scot-free.
17. Poor dialogue translations in some scenes, sometimes, it's very hard to tell on what the characters are saying.
18. The blue haired fairy is treated very poorly in this film, in that she only has ONE LINE in the entire movie, and never speaks again.
19. Very poor attempts at humor.
20. There are some questionable camera angles and shots that can be viewed as inappropriate in a kids game, one noticeable example is the scene, where after the director approached the puppets and Pinocchio after Pinocchio comes by, the camera cuts to the director's lower-half area (ex. crotch, groin and leg area) in his first appearance, and even more inappropriately, the director has a giant bulge.
    1. What makes it even worse, or funnier is the line that precedes this shot - "The Director appeared in the theater! He was so huge and fierce!"
    2. Specking of which, the full body appearance of the director, who looks like a knock-off Dick Dastardly from Wacky Races, appears in the menu title of the game and even the Matching Tiles, yet in the film, only his lower-half area is shown, you never see the director's full face at all in the film.
21. Poor musical numbers, all of which have laughable dialogue.
22. Laughable dialogue, most notably the line that Pinocchio says, "oh lovely theater music, but I must go to school." where the inflections and butchered, and later on when Pinocchio says: "take pity on me excellency, what will happen to my daddy? Mercy!"
23. Dreadful writing, and it's easy to find points that English was not the developers' first language.
    • This is further enforced by the fact that a poster in the movie is written in Polish.
24. Awkward character moments; one example is the way Pinocchio introduces himself: Okay, girls and boys!
25. The infamous grammar error in "Oh! Now I'm turning donkey!". This sentence misses the words "into" and "a" between "turning" and "donkey".
26. The terrible dogfish is depicted as a shark and not a kilometer long dogfish in the original story.
27. Very poor sequence near the ending, in which major plot elements of the film that was also in the original Walt Disney film made in 1940 (ex. the Pleasure Island/Fair where kids get turned into donkeys, the terrible dogfish that eats Geppetto while searching for Pinocchio, Pinocchio later on gets eaten by the terrible dogfish, then both he and Geppetto escape the terrible dogfish, and making it home, and then Pinocchio gets turned into a real boy, gets glossed over by a poorly made musical number, that lasts less than a minute, and fails miserably at telling the story, because the lyrics make no sense, which is very lazy.
28. Because of the few roster of characters this film has, the way the the last minutes just gloss over the major plot events of the original story by a song, combine with the one error in the painting game, this hints that unlike previous Phoenix games, Pinocchio was rushed.

The Only Redeeming Quality

1. The film, like other Phoenix Games film-games, when viewed in the right frame of mind, ironically with friends, it can be extremely funny.

Reception

Alongside Nice Cats and Countryside Bears, Pinocchio has been critically panned by critics and fans alike for its qualities, and alongside Nice Cats and Countryside Bears, it has often been considered as one of the worst games on the PlayStation 2.

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