Barbie DreamHouse Adventures

Genre: Misc.

Players: 1

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Review:

Barbie DreamHouse Adventures, released in 2023 on Nintendo Switch, is the sort of game that tends to be called an “Activity Center”, something created for young children that has various interactive elements, but is more of a toy than a game.

The presentation here uses 3D visuals that are mostly okay, but suffer from low framerates that makes the game drag, and plenty of tedious loading screens. This is backed by relentlessly upbeat music, and “Barbie”‘s frequent narration as she introduces the various parts of her house to you. And I have that in quotes because the raspy voice this Barbie speaks with here sounds nothing like any version of the character I’ve heard.

As for the “gameplay”, you’ll be looking around a house and its yard and interacting with various parts of it using either an on-screen cursor or the touchscreen in handheld mode, with bubbles popping up to signify particular points of interest or things Barbie will yap at you about. However, these bubbles don’t indicate everything you can interact with, and in order to do some things you’ll have to go through a process of trial and error to see what you can and can’t do.

It’s particularly frustrating when Barbie introduces a particular item with an invitation to use it, only to not be able to do so. Hoping those musical instruments hide a Music-Rhythm mini-game? Nope, not even the ability to bang on the drums to make noise… but you wouldn’t know it from the way Barbie enthusiastically encourages you to play music with her. Want to try out her magical outfit mirror thingy like she says you should? Too bad, you can’t do anything with it.

Even the objects you can interact with are disappointingly limited. Want to drop a book on a nearby bed? Again, too bad – you can stack it on one of the above shelves, or perhaps put it into the chest in front, but you can’t prepare a nice book to read before napping.

Look, Barbie DreamHouse Adventures is a game with no real goals, and while there are lots of things to do, none of it seems to matter at all. So at the very least I would hope that the interactivity itself would be thorough. Unfortunately not. So while a small Barbie-loving child may be enamored with the bright colors and things to click on that make Barbie talk or change the lights… anyone looking for even the slightest bit of depth won’t find it here.

tl;dr – Barbie DreamHouse Adventures is a family-friendly Activity Center where players interact with various parts of Barbie’s house. There’s little depth here, and even the interactivity is oddly limited, not even letting you do the things Barbie herself is encouraging the player to do. Add to this terrible framerates and lots of loading times, and this is a recipe for frustration for all but the most dedicated and youngest of Barbie fans.

Grade: D

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