Back when I was in secondary school, I vividly remember girls from my classroom talking about how much they enjoyed an Italian-made Nickelodeon cartoon called Winx Club. The show about girls studying in a fairy school and fighting against forces of evil became a massive hit over the following years, becoming a millennial fan favorite. Nickelodeon would even enlist some of their tween stars to voice characters in the show, such as Ariana Grande, in what’s probably going to be the first, only, and last time Ariana Grande will ever be mentioned in a WayTooManyGames review.

Winx Club is now back on air with a reboot show, the titularly-named Winx Club: The Magic Is Back, and with that, a brand new licensed tie-in game for fans of the franchise to enjoy. One I wasn’t particularly expecting to be good, but one I still felt a bit disappointed with, considering how cherished the franchise is, and how many demographics grew up appreciating it.

Even though there are input delay issues, the game is so easy you won’t even notice any difference.

The thing with the Winx Club: The Magic Is Back game is that it is obviously aimed at a vastly younger demographic, rendering the game too easy, and a bit less polished. I’m not trying to say the developers were incompetent or anything – this clearly shows that they had to come up with a solution based on upper management mandates, budgetary constraints, and a tight development schedule. It’s really devoid of vision and interesting gameplay elements, resulting in a stupidly basic isometric action-adventure, with poor controls and dialogue.

Winx Club: The Magic Is Back features a bit of puzzle-solving. Very rarely does it get any more complex than this.

Initial expectations were quite high, however. The game boots up and greets you with a somewhat high-quality FMV clip with a well-produced pop song, the kind of stuff that leads you to believe that the game will feature good voice acting, music and visuals. Sadly, I think a good chunk of the budget was spent on this introductory cutscene, as the rest of Winx Club: The Magic Is Back features visuals reminiscent of the PS2 era of gaming (and I mean a mid-tier PS2 game at that), really poor and repetitive music, and no voice acting to speak of. What the game is, in essence, is three hours of pretty basic linear exploration, puzzle solving, and getting rid of a handful of different enemy types, all while going back and forth between levels and the fairy school, which acts as a (pointless) hub.

The dialogue is spectacular, as you can see.

Each level is comprised of some introductory dialogue, and a corridor you gotta follow through. Every now and then, a branching path will reveal the opportunity to collect a card or some currency. Elsewhere, follow down the path, defeat some pretty basic enemies, and reach the end goal. When you are transported back to the hub, complete a meaningless fetch quest set in the school’s unnecessarily immense front yard, and then move onto the next level. Rinse and repeat for three hours, and the game is over.

The combat is pretty basic. Each playable character has a ranged attack, a small area of effect move, and a dash. If you charge your magic meter to the fullest, you can briefly transform into a fairy to deal more damage. But it’s VERY brief. When you’re not a fairy, you’re slow, frail, and you notice a sizeable amount of input delay between pressing a button and seeing spells coming out of your hands. But the game is so brain-dead easy (again, this is meant for very young kids) that you won’t notice difficulty spikes or hindrances. This is so banal you can beat the game without ever dying once.

Isn’t this a magical fairy school? Why do they have a VR simulator like Professor Xavier’s Danger Room?

And that’s the final verdict regarding Winx Club: The Magic Is Back. It could have been less uninteresting, had it been developed with an older audience in mind. Sure, the reboot might be aimed at a younger audience, but Winx Club is something millennials have a soft spot for. As is, this is a beyond basic, short, and harmless adventure with an underwhelming presentation, gameplay loop, and controls. You’re done with it in less than three hours. Local co-op can make the experience less aggravating, but won’t help make the gameplay feel exciting. There’s just no magic in this game about fairies.

Winx Club: The Magic Is Back is available now on PS5, PC and Switch.

Reviewed on PS5.

A copy of Winx Club: The Magic Is Back was provided by the publisher.