I received a free copy of this game for the purpose of review. The opinions in the review are my own and not influenced by getting the game for free. Also, I am a huge fan of the Princess Bride movie as well as the original book.

The Princess Bride Game is a game that you can play as many of the beloved characters from the movie, The Princess Bride. Play as Wesley the Farm Boy in As You Wish, Match wits with Vizzini in Battle of Wits, Play as The Dread Pirate Roberts and Princess Buttercup as you Survive the Fire Swamp, Play as Inigo and Fezzik helping Miracle Max and then Build a Siege Engine and Storm the Castle. Five fun games all in one.

The Princess Bride Game Trailer from PrincessBrideGame on Vimeo.

I played the game all the way through in story mode in about an hour and a half. I played story mode because of the animated cut scenes. I really wanted to see how well the animation was done and of course I wanted to hear the voice talents of some of my favorite actors. Wallace Shawn has to be one of the all time voices that I enjoy, although watching him in My Dinner with Andre put me into a coma. He does an excellent job reprising his role as Vizzini. While the game is one for children today I played further through some of the higher levels and even found challenge as an adult.

In story mode I was able to try all five games. I really consider it more like four games because the final game, Storming the Castle can really only be done once, I will say more about that later. The game starts with the grandfather reading the story about Buttercup and Westley. Then we cut to the first game, As You Wish.

As You Wish
In this first game you are Westley the Farm Boy and you are given tasks to perform, but you are also interrupted from the tasks by Princess Buttercup. The tasks start very simple with such things as feeding the chickens and gathering eggs. Then they get more complex and tasks from prior stages are added together. There is a certain period of time that you have in order to accomplish these goals. It really started to keep me on my toes around level 13. There are 20 levels total for this game.

In story mode you complete 5 of these levels to move on.

Battle of Wits
In second game you match wits with Vizzini (voiced by Wallace Shawn). These levels are full of trivia, anagrams and many other brain teasers. I did well with everything except for the anagrams, I just can’t wrap my head around those. Each new round comes another insult to your intelligence from Vizzini. That is he insults you each new round trying to trip you up. There are 15 levels in total and you have to play 5 of them to advance through the story mode. This was my least favorite of the games because I got tired of answering trivia questions. I know a lot of trivia but I don’t like answering trivia questions.

The Fire Swamp
In the third game you need to guide Westley and Princess Buttercup through the Fire Swamp. Westley can fight the R.O.U.S.s Rodents of Unusual Size while Princess Buttercup can jump higher than Westley. The two must work together, user controls each one in turn and can bounce back and forth between them at will, to go from one side of the Fire Swamp to the other. Again you need to complete 5 levels to advance through story mode. There are nineteen total levels in this part of the game.

Miracle Max
In the fourth game you play as Inigo and Fezzik helping Miracle Max to find ingredients for magic potions and spells. You alternate between searching though Max’s cluttered storerooms and then to the cauldron where you must help mix the potions. Children will have their problem solving and memory skills tested as they help mix the potions into colors such as green, orange and purple. Then things get even more interesting as they add specific smoke to the potions. You must play 5 of these levels to advance the story mode and there are 17 levels in total.

Storm the Castle
I expected more out of the fifth game and was disappointed that in the end you needed to gather pieces of the siege engine from all the intro and outro scenes along the way. So I had to go back and collect everything. Don’t get me wrong, the intros and outros are worth watching the first time around but having to go back and find things in the end was sort of a waste of time. Once you gather everything however you put the pieces together to create a Rube Goldbergian contraption that is humorous in its execution. And there are no other levels of this game. You play it, set the Siege Engine off and that’s it, you watch the credits roll.

I think this was a great game and young kids will not only learn a little but they will be entertained along the way. If it gets them interested in watching the movie or reading the Princess Bride book than all the better. Plus the price of the game is only $9.99 and it is worth every penny. The official website also has some fun features such as crossword puzzles and paper dolls that can be printed out. You can even demo the game for yourself with three playable demos.