On the visual side, the game doesn't make that much better of a case for itself. The environments aren't anything special, and while you can press the A button to see a star on parts of the environment you can interact with, sometimes the stars are hard to see, or the interaction is just plain wonky. The character models walk like they're applying for the Undersecretary of Jive position within the Ministry of Silly Walks, and when a character speaks, the game shows a portrait of the speaking character to show who's talking. This is all well and good for Mo, represented with a stately portrait of Brendan Fraser, but Meggie is always staring off into the distance, Aunt Elinor looks like she's trying to remember something, and Basta, poor Basta, cursed to stand with a knife at the ready for all of eternity. That must make for some very awkward conversations.

The one saving grace that the game does has is that is references plenty of older, classic novels that young kids may have never heard of. Having two protagonists that are so strongly into reading is never a bad thing, and if some kid plays this game and then decides to go off and read "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", well good on you, kid. Welcome to the wonderful world of reading. It's a shame that the best part of the game is that it may make you want to go and do something other than playing it, but in the end we need to take praise where we can find it, and at directing the player towards other, more interesting pursuits, Inkheart is a resounding success.

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