Gummy Bears Magical Medallion for Wii: Release, Credits, Reviews

Gummy Bears Magical Medallion is a side-scrolling platformer for the Nintendo Wii, released in the United States on 21 June 2011 under the Storm City banner. Players guide a gummy bear through candy-themed stages to put a magical medallion back together.

Overview

The premise is simple. King Sour Berry has taken four gems from the medallion that kept the bears’ kingdom hidden from him, and the player works through the stages to restore it. The ESRB summary adds that the bears bounce on enemies from the Crazy Candy Army, who disappear in a puff of smoke.

Common Sense Media describes a world of chocolate platforms and licorice rollers, with a trial-and-error rhythm and a story that stays in the background. It also reports 12 levels. WorthPlaying reads the same structure differently: three worlds, four stages each, and a trio of timed collecting stages at the end of every world.

How it plays

The characters are rendered in 3D but move on a fixed two-dimensional camera, and some routes curve around background structures. WorthPlaying compared that trick to the Wii remake of Klonoa and named it the one feature that stood out.

Most enemies are there to be jumped over, and fruit and coins are scattered through the stages. Finishing a stage thoroughly can earn an achievement or a new colour for the bear.

Two minigames unlock doors along the way. One is a jigsaw puzzle that uses the Wii Remote as a pointer, and the other is a memory-matching game played with the directional pad, which the reviewer found hard to follow once only a few cards remained.

Release and credits

WorthPlaying lists Clockwork Games as developer and Storm City Entertainment as publisher, with a 21 June 2011 date and a $20 price. Common Sense Media gives the same date but prints Storm City Games as publisher. The ESRB entry, which rates the game E for Everyone with a Comic Mischief descriptor, uses Storm City Entertainment. Both company names appear across the Storm City catalogue, so this page reports each as its source prints it.

Reception

WorthPlaying scored it 3.0 out of 10. Dustin Chadwell called the visuals flat and low on texture, the music repetitive, and the challenge slight even for very young players. He also reported a glitch in which the bear sticks inside objects after being hit, which forces a restart of the stage.

Common Sense Media was milder, calling it a standard platformer with a distinctive candy setting that casual players may enjoy and experienced ones may find unrewarding. It recommends the game for ages 6 and up.

Can you still play it?

The game shipped on a Wii disc, so a copy plays on a Wii and, through Wii Mode, on a Wii U. Wii Mode needs a Sensor Bar for most software, and the jigsaw minigame here uses the pointer, so keep one connected. The Wii Shop Channel closed on 30 January 2019, but this was a disc release and does not depend on it. Discs are region-coded, so a North American copy needs an NTSC-U console.