It’s safe to say that the GBA game for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron will probably appeal to more girls, although the movie was made to appeal to both girls and boys. The focal point of the game involves you – the human player, playing as either Little Brook or Little Creek – to tame and collect the various horses that are scattered across the lightly forested plain. The horses are scattered because of a terrible storm, and will require a little love and affection to trust your human character. In order to tame the animals you have a number of options: including coaxing bribes such as food (works for me!), singing, speaking, and music playing. Once you tame a particular horse and figure out which reward works best for him/her, you’ll need to work at keeping your steed happy as you trek across different environments and dodge enemies. The ultimate goal is to collect the wild horses and gather them to the safety of the “Homeland.”

Some things to avoid? Well first of all, not all the animals are nice. Luckily for you, your mount has some wicked hooves to give your unfriendly neighbors a good swift kick. You can use both your front legs and back legs to give the baddie a furious kick – but just remember, the more your horse gets spooked or injured, the less he’s going to feel like hauling you around on his/her back. You will also have ample opportunity to jump over obstacles and also to help out some friendly creatures who are in need of some items scattered around the forest. You will also find various items to help you on your quest, and the varying environments (such as prairies and forests) keeps the game from falling into terminal monotony. Enemies get tougher as you progress, as well as the challenge of keeping your horse happy. In a funny way, it kind of reminded me of playing Ultima Online and taming mounts in that game. It was certainly different and I could see young girls REALLY enjoying the concept.

The only real problem with the game is that despite its different approach, it gets pretty repetitive quickly. Even with the changing background and subtly increasing difficulty, you won’t feel like there’s much to the game other than the core of taming and running. After the initial discovery, it just becomes a variation on a theme, and for many short-attention spanned gamers, the novelty may wear off quick.

Graphically, the game is about par. There’s nothing extraordinary about the graphics, and they may even be a bit on the basic side for a GBA game. Still and all I couldn’t really complain, I just considered that there are other movie-to-game transitions that seemed to do a better job of recreating the feel of the movie. After all, isn’t that the market they’re looking for? Sounds aren’t all that impressive either, with the singing action being a bit unsoothing rather than soothing like it’s supposed to be. The audio visual isn’t bad mind you, it just seemed a bit too bare bones.

Overall, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron will probably go down as one of the more unsung accomplishments in animation history. Despite the serious message, unconventional approach, and lots of horses – the movie didn’t do as well in the theatres and unfortunately this will reflect on game sales as well. Like I said, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron isn’t for everyone – it’s definitely a niche audience – but for that equine-loving audience this game might just be their game of the year!

Gameplay: 7.5
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is a refreshing twist to what usually ends up being the same old movie-to-console game. Instead of the usual platformer, featuring the sights, sounds and characters from the movies, Spirit becomes more of a lesson of animal stewardship. It’s really nice to see a game that breaks the usual mode, and even though the game might feel a bit boring to some gamers, I think it’s nice to see someone catering to a different audience than just the usual platformers and hack-n-slasher.

Graphics: 7 
Nothing out of the ordinary here. Graphics seem almost a bit basic, but the visuals on things like the horses running and jumping are rather pleasing to see.

Sound: 7
Kind of like the graphics, there’s nothing really to get excited or disappointed about. It’s all pretty run of the mill, with the sound perhaps dipping a bit below average.

Difficulty: Medium
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron isn’t for the youngest of gamers. It does require “research” of sorts to really be successful in taming the horses, but once you get the hang of it – it’s all easy from there. Just remember to have pen and paper handy, like many similar genre games, you can’t save straight to the game.   

Concept: 7 .5
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron does for GBA what the movie did for animated features – it takes a departure from the norm and will really appeal to it’s niche audience.

Overall: 7.5
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron isn’t for everyone. Just like the movie from Dreamworks – it really fits a particular niche audience. For horse lovers, and lovers of the movie, I would rank this game higher, but many GBA gamers may find the action a bit slow and repetitive.