Anastasia: Adventures with Pooka and Bartok

Anastasia: Adventures with Pooka and Bartok
Cover art
Developer(s)	Motion Works
Publisher(s)	Fox Interactive
Producer(s)	David Wisehart
Platform(s)	Mac OS Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	1997
Genre(s)	Puzzle
Mode(s)	Single-player

Anastasia: Adventures with Pooka and Bartok is a Fox Interactive puzzle video game, which is based on the Don Bluth-directed Fox Animation Studios film "Anastasia". It was released in 1997, and produced by David Wisehart. Wisehart also served as voiceover director.^[1] The game has an estimated budget of US$800,000.^[2]

Production

According to Allgame, " Meg Ryan does the voiceover for Anya's diary entries".^[3]

Synopsis

IMDb explains the plot thus:^[4]

Anastasia and her puppy, Pooka, travel the long route from St. Petersburg to Paris to find her grandmother in the hopes of proving her true identity. Anya keeps track of her adventure in her diary, while collecting clues along the way, and runs into to some game play with Bartok to defeat Rasputin's minions.

Anya's diary entries are used as a plot device to help move the story along.

Gameplay

Mobygames explains the gameplay:^[5]

It features five different scenes, depicting situations from the movie. Diary entries by Anya tell the happenings between those stages. The player takes the role of the puppy Pooka and needs to solve problems and puzzles to help Anya out. When searching through the screens, Pooka may meet the minions of the villain Rasputin. Then they take him to the underworld where he has to solve action or strategy mini games. The majority of the game is a traditional point & click adventure. Bartok, the bat, plays only a secondary part and provides some advice here and there. If players are stuck, they can use the in-game hint system.

Allgame explains an example of a quest that one will encounter in the game, and the series of steps the player must take in order to reach that goal:^[3]

During the first part of the game you must find Dmitri's location in St. Petersburg. You discover a fortuneteller who can provide the information easily enough but, in order to get it, you must get something from a clothier for the seer.

Cast

• Meg Ryan - Anastasia
• John Cusack - Dmitri
• Hank Azaria - Bartok
• Jim Cummings - Rasputin
• Jamie Goferman - Cleaning Woman
• Summer Litwin - Fortune Teller, Ballerina
• Wade Major - Clothes Vendor
• Martin G. Metcalf - Artist
• Chris Miller - Man in Booth

Critical reception

Allgame gave the game a rating of 2/5 stars, criticizing its "frustrating gameplay", unhelpful manual, and the difficulty in locating locations and objects. It noted "Navigating through the pictures can be extremely confusing...which may lead to intense frustration, especially for the targeted audience." The site added "Another disappointment is the lack of interaction with any of the characters from the movie". While concluding "it's simply not satisfying and the mini-games are not interesting enough to justify repeated playing", the site gave high scores for the "clean, clear and colorful" graphics, and "clear" "easy" and "nice" sounds.^[3]

Quandary gave the game 70/100, writing "Anastasia is irresistible with some gorgeous graphics and some entertaining characters", but didn't recommend it due to "its relative simplicity and brevity".^[6] Metzomagic gave the game 3.5/5 stars, and wrote "The animations are wonderful, as are the graphics, the sound effects, voices, music and, of course, the story is enduring. As for its performance as an adventure game for children it also does a superbly entertaining job".^[7]

References

External links

• Anastasia: Adventures with Pooka and Bartok at the Internet Movie Database
• Anastasia: Adventures with Pooka and Bartok at MobyGames