It was unknown to me but after some research I’ve learned that Dinotopia has been around for awhile on TV and in books. So I guess the gameplay does tie in with the novels and TV series somehow. If you’re a fan of those publications then I’m sure you would find something more in Dinotopia then I did. But I’m sure it won’t be much more. The general concept seems like a good idea, and the game tried it best to capture the feeling of a land filled by Dinosaurs threatened by some random evil but the gameplay just can’t hold the game together even with a giant bottle of crazy glue. The story is simple enough players control Drake Gemini in his quest to reunite his family and become a Guardian of Dinotopia, so on the island of Dinotopia humans and dinosaurs can coexist and live happily ever after. Too bad the evil of bad game development caused the inhabitants of Dinotopia to talk with their mouths shut!

The Sunstone Odyssey is not a great looking game, not even good sorry to say. Its environments are quite dull with nothing awe inspiring too look at, and the low polygon count makes the game look more PSone than GameCube. The characters are rather blocky and have a never-ending blank stare about them during the animated cut scenes. The dino’s are stiff, ugly and unlikable. Add to that the levels are small with almost no imagination put into them. Hasn’t videogames evolved beyond “walk straight path, reach fork, take path A, hit switch, back track, take path B, exit through now open door, and fight a few enemies on the way.”

Was this game made as a joke? With Dolby Surround as a feature this game supports it has to be. Honestly the game does have a soundtrack that works well enough, but it’s the bad voice acting that takes a dodo on the audio. The dialogue seem really slow and drawn out to the point that gamers will get bored listening to the long bits (very long too) of dialogue that rarely get to the point when you want it to. As for sound effects…I want to hear my stick collide with some dino’s skull when I hit them, not two seconds after!

Gameplay in Dinotopia is made up mostly of on-foot running around. Thankfully though, there's plenty of combat to be had, though the fighting system is shallow and lacks any excitement. You only have a small handful of moves at your disposal, and none of them are very interesting to watch. Drake wields a mallet as his weapon, and along your quest, you'll earn mallet heads to attach to your weapon that will make it stronger and give you access to new magic attacks. Magic attacks in Dinotopia are rather boring looking and lack any finesse one would expect from magic. To worsen matters, the games enemies are dumb as doorknobs. You'll come across both human and Dinosaur adversaries, and they usually attack in groups. Both human and Dinosaur enemies alike seem to have an extremely hard time hitting you as long as you stay moving. You practically have to stand in place and allow them to beat you to die, though if you (for some reason) run low on health, there are plants scattered throughout the games areas that will heal some of your health for you. And please don’t get me started on some of the task you have to accomplish during play! If collecting baskets of apples for some old ugly dinosaur sounds entertaining to you, on behalf of the GCA staff I ask you too go see a doctor fast.

Conclusion
I’m guessing Dinotopia: The Sunstone Odyssey tries very hard to capture the atmosphere and style of the Dinotopia books, and TV series. But for the most part, it just isn't a lot of fun to play. Ok maybe I’m not being truthful; it’s never fun to play from start to finish. I couldn’t recommend playing Dinotopia if it was a gift from a dying relative! Get something, almost anything else for you GameCube and you’ll be more satisfied. Even the ill fated Spyro: Enter The Dragonfly gives more bang for your buck! Unless you have a sick and weird obsession with talking dino’s stay far far away from this game! FYI the Gameboy Advance Dinotopia game isn’t too good either.