The great thing about having little kids is that you can watch all these ‘child-oriented’ movies and series without the condescending judgment you get nowadays from everyone. For example, we recently watched the Hotel Transylvania movies, and my little one(s) loved them. It’s full of humor and little nudges only adults will understand. But the plot is also great and is even more enjoyable for an adult than some movies they are screening in theaters nowadays. So, how was the game, you might ask? We will have to wait until the sun sets, then we can read these spooky tales.

For those unfamiliar with the series, let’s do a quick summary of the first movie to give you an idea about the premise of the game/movie. Unfortunately, this game is set way behind the film, so just for general understanding, I’ll explain the game’s plot a little later in the review.

Hotel Transylvania – Film

The film tells the story of Count Dracula, the owner of a hotel called Hotel Transylvania, where the world’s monsters can take a rest from human civilization. Dracula invites some of the most famous monsters to celebrate the 118th birthday of his beloved daughter Mavis. When the “human-free hotel” is unexpectedly visited by an ordinary 21-year-old traveler named Jonathan, Drac must do everything in his power to prevent Mavis from falling in love with him before the hotel’s guests learn a human is in the castle, which may jeopardize the hotel’s future and his career. – Fast forward a few movies, and it’s no longer Count Dracula; it is Pap Drac, who reads bedtime stories to little monster kiddos.

Hotel Transylvania: Scary-Tales Adventures

So, in Hotel Transylvania: Scary-Tales Adventures, you take control of Drac and Mavis and play through unique worlds with their spooky spin, including Little Red Riding Hood, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. They all have their feel but are still very recognizable as the original stories (just with a children’s twist). It felt very familiar since my eldest daughter helps me tell stories, which usually results in entirely different stories from those I intend to convey.

Faced with fearsome foes and fiendish puzzles, you must brave your way through and utilize your special abilities to dash, glide and jump through these spooktacular storybook worlds. Of course, you can only pick one book at a time – so be sure that you start with the story you want (either way, you’ll have to start all over). You’ll even get to meet iconic Hotel Transylvania characters like Johnny, Murray, Wayne, and more, who’ll guide you to complete exciting quests and solve devious challenges, along with a coffin-full of collectibles for you to discover. With so much at stake, Drac and Mavis are Count-ing on you to save the day!

Platform-Galore

This will be a feast for fans of the old-school platforming games from the PS2 and GameCube (like Sphinx, Jax & Dexter, or even Banjo Kazooie from the N64) eyes. The world is structured like a hub, with a few different levels, a shop to buy cards and characters from the series. Each level will have you collect items, battle enemies and solve a quest to progress to the next level. When you reach the end of said hub-world, you will have to fight the final boss, which is pretty hard for a game marked at children! To help you with these quests, you can power up Drac and Mavis with super-strength, immobilization powers, super jump, and more. Unfortunately, this usually means that you have to backtrack a few times to complete the level to a 100% since you don’t have all the powers unlocked from the start.

It’s not all great, though – the Nintendo Switch version suffers from a few framerate issues/drops, which makes some jump-puzzles and boss fights pretty hard. The same goes for the camera, which feels a bit out of the loop at some angles. This made it difficult to traverse the parts with watery elements since they mean instadeath. It’s not game-breaking, but when I compare the Nintendo Switch performance with the other platforms, I opt to pick one of the other platforms if you own one.

Conclusion

So, to conclude, Hotel Transylvania: Scary-Tale Adventures offers something for everyone. Children who fan the series, adults who love the old-school platformers, and everyone in between. The humor is excellent, the game looks great, but the performance made it hard to love this title the way I would usually have fully. So if you own one of the other platformers, Hotel Transylvania is released on, pick it up on that one.

6.5/10

Tested on the Nintendo Switch.