Peter Pan: Return to Neverland - More Like, I'll Never Play This Again Land

20/01/25

Disney makes some of the most iconic, beautiful animated films of all time; and whilst their properties haven’t always gracefully made the leap to video game form, some of those games - such as the generally excellent Toy Story PS1 titles - have been some real bangers. None of this applies to Peter Pan: Return to Neverland, and if you expected otherwise… Well, you’re a far more optimistic player than I.

Y’know, a big initiative for the Game Boy Abyss this year is just trying to play games of a slightly higher quality than last year. I don’t want to push through all the first party bangers or anything, but for my own sanity, I need more Bruce Lee and less Van Helsing. Fun fact - I usually work out the next five or so games I’ll review in advance, and I try to stick to that schedule, so it’s a bit ironic that I talk about that initiative, and now I play one of the most atrociously boring, frustrating, and forgettable games I’ve played yet for the Game Boy Abyss. Peter Pan, you were already a mediocre film; you could’ve at least given me a mediocre game adaptation to go with it. You could’ve given me ANYTHING.

Okay, that’s a little unfair, since this isn’t an adaptation of the original Disney film, but ostensibly of its sequel (a rare Disney theatrical sequel, at that) Return to Neverland. But even *that* isn’t accurate, as this game seemingly has very, very little in common with that film. Whilst the sequel tells a story with themes of cynicism and death, set in the backdrop of wartime England, the video game has none of that. In fact, its entire initial premise - bringing Wendy’s children to Neverland - is abandoned almost instantly; Wendy’s kids are forgotten right after the first stage and the story shifts to a generic ‘stop Captain Hook’ direction. Look, I don’t give two craps about this game’s story, but the fact that it’s *this* tacked on is almost shamefully funny, with only the most transient of stills to provide further context.

Ah yes, to no one’s surprise, this Disney-themed shovelware is, in fact, a platformer. I swear, I swear, I do my best to give these games a fair shake, but uh, it doesn’t make it easy. Whilst Peter has the ability to fly - when he has Tinker Bell with him - early levels will have him with boots on the ground, and whilst it’s… functional, Peter’s controls feel so loose and floaty, if the game was throwing any kind of challenging, non-flying platforming at you, this would be a problem, but as it is? It’s… fine. Satisfactory. I guess. On the other hand, Peter Pan’s combat repertoire is ludicrously limited, with the world’s shortest stab and a dagger toss that loops back to him. When dealing with the game’s squad of enemies - all of whom die in one to two hits, with pretty much no unique mechanical depth to them - you’ll pretty much constantly be using the dagger toss, as trying to use the melee hit will always end in you taking damage - though Peter has so much health that unless you’re constantly bumping into fools, odds are you won’t lose any lives outside of bottomless pits or boss encounters. The only additional move is a butt slam that never felt useful in general combat, only really coming into play during the game’s boss fights, so again, you should really only stick to the dagger toss.

Return to Neverland also casually threw in one of those worst ‘puzzles’ I’ve ever seen on the GBA. Basically, after traversing the desert levels without Tinker Bell, you find her in a cage; you then have to do the following: Cut down apples (I think?) from a tree, already an annoying task when Peter’s moves come out so slow, and the tree’s hitbox so small. Next, you have to slowly move across the screen, holding down the R button and try to throw the apple into the cage’s bucket counterweight. You miss? Slowly walk back, slowly cut down the apple, slowly tow it to the spot, throw again. Do this four times. Slow. Slow. SLOW. This paragraph might just be ancillary, but it was the most time I spent on any section of the game, and it left me so annoyed, so bummed, I had to talk about it. Terrible. And it’s the only puzzle of its kind in the game, which just feels even more confusing.

The game’s main gimmick is Peter’s ability to fly after reuniting with Tinker Bell halfway through the game. Whilst this should give you some kind of freedom, and imply an idea of level design with this flying in mind. Wrong! Wrong I say! Most levels - sans the mines, which is a fresh, new interpretation of hell - are incredibly open, with much of the level *extremely* easy to skip if you can manage to gather refills to your flying meter, and then you can just soar over enemies and obstacles alike.

Or at least, you could in theory, if the flying didn’t feel like you were swimming and fighting through a sea of molasses whilst having several balls and chains hanging from all four of Peter’s limbs. He turns and moves so slowly, it almost makes me want to just keep Peter’s boots on the ground, as boring as that stock-standard platforming is. Almost. Frequently, I found Peter would just stop midair - flight meter still draining, of course - and it required some furious tapping to get him to get him moving in a direction. The game’s flight issues hit a fever pitch in the game’s ‘mine’ levels. There’s a number of thick stalactites and stalagmites that feel as if they have some kind of anti-flying energy field, likely born from lore accurate, atrocious hitboxes. With the mines being the sole level that the flying feels designed around, with plenty of vertical shafts to ration your flight meter around, it is a ridiculously unfun series of stages to go through when you lose your flight because of level geometry, forcing you to backtrack and hopefully not get screwed by invisible hitboxes once more. Delightful stuff.

The only diversions from the game’s utterly broken and unengaging platforming are a handful of minigames and boss encounters, the former of which help balance out the experience, and the latter which might be its very worst elements.The minigames are more forgettable than anything, honestly; one is an auto-scroller where you’re just blasting random foes out of the sky, whilst the other is the classic ‘shoot a cannon into the distance and try and blow up some fools’. They’re just so short they barely register in my head, but the less time I’m spending actually dealing with the ass platforming, the happier I am. Hell, I don’t even know if you need to clear them; I only hit two guys in the cannon minigame, and then I was in the next zone. Weird.

The boss encounters, whilst not incredibly difficult, are markedly nastier than anything else the game has to offer, mostly due to how unclear and outright annoying their mechanics are. The most annoying thing about them is just how damn long it takes to get through them - so much time spent just waiting for opportunities to attack with very little to engage in between damage chances. One boss has you - slowly, as with all things in this game - picking up an alarm clock, tossing it at an enemy so they bend down and throw it back, and shooting them whilst they do it. But if you move too close to the enemy, they’ll fire upon you, making you drop the alarm clock… and then shoot you so quickly, you can’t pick it up, forcing you to just let Peter get filled with lead so you can reset positions and not get stuck in such a horrendous death loop. It’s atrocious, simply atrocious design, and a highlight (lowlight?) of the game’s jankiness.

The game is ridiculously short, with my playthrough clocking in at less than an hour and a half, and that was with me spending some time trying to work out what the game’s awful Tinker Bell puzzle, and janky boss fights, were actually asking me to do. It also made me giggle at how abruptly the game ends - you beat Captain Hook, get a whole ‘I’ll leave, but I’ll be back Peter Pan, nyahahah!’ and then a hard cut back to the main menu. No credits, no nothing. If that isn’t the mark of a cheaply made game, to the point the developers didn’t even throw their names into the game itself… Well, that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the game’s quality, no? Though, if you’ve read this far, I doubt you’ve got much confidence in the game as a whole anyways. And with a game this short, of course, that means no saves - just passwords! But the game is short enough, and losing lives only puts you back to the start of the stage, so I can’t be *that* mad about it.

Hilariously, the game’s occasional minigame interludes have no music whatsoever - or barely any sound effects whatsoever - creating these very odd, almost off putting aura. The rest of the game's audio is so bit-crunched and unclear it’s more entertaining than bad, to the point that most of the game blends together and you’d be forgiven for thinking Peter Pan only has one or two songs. And whilst not amongst the worst the console has to offer, Return to Neverland’s visuals are undoubtedly poor, with Peter and enemies sprites being squashed and fuzzy, and most areas looking as if they’ve been sculpted from bland, untextured clay. Also, shout out to my favourite element of this brand of movie tie-ins - pixelated, ugly screenshots from the film, made even better by it’s seemingly utter disconnect from the slightly more thoughtful source material.

Many of the elements I’ve described in Peter Pan: Return to Neverland aren’t the worst I’ve seen on the console - Van Helsing was uglier, Shrek Speedway was more frustrating to control, and Elf had worse minigames. These are atrocious games, but for Peter Pan, it's death by a thousand cuts that makes me so frustrated with it. When the basic platforming mechanics fight you this hard… well, that says it all there, doesn’t it? When the very basics don’t function to even an average level, and it only gets worse for there… It’s everything wrong with licensed title, distilled almost to a science, and all I can say is… I wish I was remotely surprised.

Thanks for reading my review of Peter Pan: Return to Neverland. Alright. We’re done with shovelware for a bit. Next five games or so are going to be things a little more notable, a little weirder, but have vastly more potential than a title like Peter Pan. As always, you can find me over at Bluesky @gameboyabyss, same on Twitch, or email me at mgeorge7003@hotmail.com or cckaiju@gmail.com! See you next time!