Much like the main character of every role-playing game ever made, this morning I awoke from a dream to find that a magical world was awaiting me.  A new Disney proper game, Disney Enchanted Tales is now out in North America and its full of magic and beds and Gaston stomping and, well, why don’t we just take a closer look.

Basically, the Fairy God Mother shows up at your bed to turn your bed into a magical canvas of fairy tale goodness.  I wish she would do this for me.  Right now my bed is a canvas of dog hair.  The first thing you’ll be asked to do in the game is to select a story to follow.  Your choices, for now, include Beauty and the Beast, Tangled and Frozen.  I, being the purist that I am, chose Beauty and the Beast.  I LOVE that we are asked to choose early on because it means that your experience and my experience might be a bit different.  I’m not expecting worlds of difference here, but I do think it is neat to have variety and choice so early in a game.  It’s also great for families as each family member can play a different story line and really feel like they are experiencing their own story line.

BUT I WANT THEM ALL!

The thing you might notice very quickly is that Disney Enchanted Tales comes with a very unique art style.  Many iOS games do this thing where they use an art style to differentiate themselves, but often just come off cheap.  This is no the case here.  The art is adorable and really accentuates this magical fairy tale idea.  The buildings look great and a bursting with detail and the whole canvas idea that I am moving these magical buildings around on my bed really has a fun feel to it.

Welcome to my Kingdom Belle, now go do some manual labor!

I was quickly asked to send Belle on tasks which would earn me Chicken eggs, which is a good thing, as the only way to welcome Gaston was to offer him eggs.  At which point he was happy to stomp around my little plot of bed.

Or we could just keep him locked since, you know, he’s a jerk face.

It wasn’t long before I was being asked to spend gems to speed things up, which may mean that the slow down of this game will happen fairly soon.  However, I will say that I also felt as though I was able to add quite a lot to my little home away from home before this moment.  And unlike other games, my wait times feel gradual.  I was asked to wait five minutes and then fifteen.  Not a whopping hour or anything like that so soon.

Rewards unlock as you level up.

I was given quests to do as well which helped me in the process of telling the story of Belle and Gaston.  For example, in order for Belle to try to return her book, like in the movie, we needed a Bookseller, which meant building his home.  This also meant that he showed up as well.  The Bookseller showing up might seem like not a big deal BUT IT IS!  Seeing the attention to welcoming such minor characters means that there should be lots of characters to welcome in each story line.  That’s great!  I like the details of Disney films and getting to welcome even the most minimal characters is something that makes me really excited to dive deeper into Disney Enchanted Tales.

Diamonds.  It’s always all about the diamonds!

I will also quickly mention that this is an excellent tutorial.  I felt very much guided through and I think many of the basic questions were answered, leaving me just enough to explore on my own.

There are also daily quests which make for a great reason to log in every day as you will always find something a little bit new to do.  This is something that a lot of games do as a reason to keep logging in and I can only imagine it will give me a reason to collect even more coins in the pursuit of building my little kingdom.  I love that while doing these quests, you can zoom in to a very close level to see these adorable characters.  For example, it’s fun to spy on Gaston as he does push-ups!

YOU BETTER WORK!

Before long, the game sets you off on your own to unlock new lands and complete quests, of which you are given several all of a sudden.  There’s a sense of story and wonder here and I’m very interested to see how things play into the next story line as I come back to Frozen and Tangled.  I’m also excited to see how the game progresses from a wait time perspective.  I, for one, don’t mind long wait times as I play enough of these games that I need the games to tell me when it’s okay to move on to the next.

It seems gifts can be unlocked in new areas after a time.

And for anyone looking to get a head start, there’s a nice little discounted welcome package.

The big question I think might be asked is how does this compare to Disney Magic Kingdoms, another game we talk about a lot here.  Well, so far, they seem fairly similar.  While DMK has a bit more customization, DET tells a more personal story.  They both have excellent music and lush beautiful graphics.  So far, my guess is that DET will appeal to a younger, more Princess driven crowd, but my opinion on that could change.  While DMK feels like a day out at the park, this feels like a nice day at home, reading your favorite book.  I’d say your best bet is to just have both on your device and go back and forth between them to have the most fun possible!  After all, wait times make this very possible.

We’ve created a lovely little Facebook group for those interested in this game and some other Disney mobile games and you are most invited to join by going HERE!

In the meantime, will you be picking this one up, and if so, which story line will you start with?  Let me know in the comments!!!