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Great Tree is a fairy game with a simple flavor. The art work featured during the storyline is expressed with the sort of sketches just about any fan of fairies will adore. The storyline itself is written as well as spoken and although it often borders on circuitous it fits with the theme of dark versus light.

The game itself is a fun mix of collecting and avoiding. You begin in a level represented by a circle. While you are within the circle your background will remain the same. It is a location, like the Castle Garden, represented by a photograph of flowers and a statue.

You are replacing the Swee, a cute bundle of bees that have been captured by the Ixies. Your mission is to flit around and collect bits of pollen on your ponytail. If that doesn't give you a sense of the girlishness of this game I don't know what will.

Darting around between bugs, able to reach all four corners of your screen, gathering colored sparkly bits and depositing them, is a lot more fun than I imagined. Add the occasional superpower to nuke your enemies, and the daredevil swoops to get that magic to unlock captured Swee and you've got a simple way to entertain a gaming audience. I enjoyed this game. I began to plan ways to improve my time. As soon as a gamer starts planning they are sold.

In addition to the huge chapter of story at the beginning there are unlock-able chunks between some of the levels. This is additional incentive to continue your pollen gathering quest. You want to find out what happens to the noble Pixies and if their strongest gatherers survive the hard tasks ahead. My only complaint is that it would have been nice to have story supplements between each level and not so much all at once.

In Great Tree you can also customize your fairy gatherer. It is up to you whether or not you want them to be faster, stronger, sturdier, etc. As the levels progress these skills could make the game more or less fun for you. You might think you are fast enough already, but in this game changes creep up on you.

The graphics were clean, colorful and simple. They moved well, they loaded well. The movement was unpredictable or predictable depending on the insect you were dealing with. At first the background disappointed me. It made the fairy gatherer look pathetic. Then I stopped noticing it once those sparkling bits of light started pinging around the screen.

The sound was efficient. Everything has its own noise, depositing, gathering, buzzing, freeing Swee, even hitting into an enemy had a resulting curse. The music isn't the sort that sticks in your head but it was suitable for the genre of the game. It set the mood during different scenes.

This game is creative. It may be a story we've heard before but the simple way it plays out is not only sufficient but also fun. The tasks you are doing matter to you because of the story line and the way you perform them keeps you interested.

This game is also innovative. The stationary background seemed disappointing at first but then I realized that it served to not take focus from the foreground which is ultimately what a gamer is interested in. By using a photo-realistic setting you get your eye candy before the pollen wrestling begins. Add to that the end level "boss" of an additional slug or Venus fly trap to limit your flight patterns and you've got a different way to play the traditional RPG.

I give it a 5/5 and I say that it is a good buy. Great Tree is great game for kids, fairy fans or someone looking for a new way to play.

Learn more about this author, E. Rae Fallesen.
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