This game is a huge disappointment. The move to 3D proves to be a severe mistake crippling the whole game. Controls are imprecise, much too often you die to missed jumps or being stuck at objects you thought were far enough behind your character to pass. Never really knowing where your character is on the depth axis of the level adds a random element to every action, which is obviously bad news in a platformer. The fact that placement of conjured objects is a chore does not improve anything. The controls are bad, the camera is worse. It may very well be the worst camera I ever encountered in any video game, and I've been playing those for several decades now. You rarely see what you want to see, sometimes you have to jump into areas you can't see, possibly dying there, important objects are obscured by stuff in the foreground, the camera angle is awkward, forcing you to guess which directions may be suitable for jumps ... the list is endless, and suffering from camera problems is not the exception, but the rule, turning parts of the game into a chore. There is still one strength the game preserves, and that is the fairy tale style. It is visually stunning, certainly one of the most beautiful games currently available, and narrator and soundtrack are on the same excellent level they had in the preceding games. Without those qualities, the game would be a candidate for one star. Other players mention that the game is short, something like four or five hours. I can't tell, because I quit the game after about three hours ( which felt like twice as much ), with feelings of frustration and dissapointment. I loved both predecessors, bought and played everything in the franchise, and that is why my disappointment is so deep.
