I am a pretty big fan of Adventure Time, so when I heard that there would be an Adventure Time game coming to the 3DS, I was ecstatic. The gameplay was to be based upon Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and the script would be written by Pendleton Ward, the creator of the show. When I got the game, I was not disappointed... for the most part.

Story/ Writing: Basically, the plot to this game is that the Ice King has stolen Finn and Jake's garbage. Finn and Jake are not happy about that, so they go on a quest around the Land of Ooo to get it back. If you can't tell, the plot to Hey Ice King is kinda weird, which really lets you know that this game will be true to the show right from the get-go. The writing in this game is definitely its strongest point. As I said earlier, show creator Pendleton Ward helped to write the script to this game, and all of the spirit and humor in the show is also present within this game. There were many times in this game where I started laughing out loud, almost to the point of crying. I don't want to spoil any of the jokes, so just trust me here; they are definitely up to par with the show. The humor is sort of an acquired taste, though; it tends to be really random. I would suggest watching some Adventure Time first before getting the game, since the humor is such a huge part of the game. Actually, I would suggest watching a lot of Adventure Time first before getting the game, because otherwise you will not get many of the jokes or character appearances.

Gameplay: For a game with such strong and hilarious writing, it is surprising how generic the gameplay is. I mean, its fun, but its still pretty generic. If you have played Zelda II already, you know what to expect; you explore a top down world and when you enter a village, dungeon, or other action area, the game switches to a sidescrolling platformer. The game follows the age old formulaic structure of do quest, find dungeon, get item, beat boss etc. Now, this would be fine with me if I didn't find it against the nature of the show. In an interview with Nintendo Power, Pendleton Ward had said that he believed that every story has already been written, but its up to the writers to put their own spin on it. By extension, it should also be said that every game has already been made and its up to the designers to put their own spin on them. The quests are pretty good; they're your typical fetch quests you find in regular RPG's. During these, though, you get the most time with characters from the show and many of the funnier moments happen. The dungeons in the game I found to be a bit of a drag. They are really as generic as the come. There is no spirit in the design at all, just jumping between platforms, fighting monsters, hitting switches, and that's about it. The enemies in the dungeons were fine; many were really good references to the show and many of the bosses were funny and made me laugh. I did really enjoy playing the game, however, I was really expecting something a little more unexpected from the dungeons and other action areas of the game. Sometimes it felt like I was just fighting my way through the game to get to the next line of dialogue. The gameplay itself is simple as well. You just attack the enemies with Finn's sword or Jake's fist (as well as assorted other Jake transformations), and you can use power ups littered throughout the areas to assist you in battle, many of which are references to the cartoon, such as the Crystal Gem Apple or the Nightosphere Amulet. 

Depth/ Difficulty/ Addictiveness: I remember when I started playing this game, I was having a great time. Then about an hour into the game, I saved and saw my percent completion; I was already 30% finished with the game. This game is much too short, as well as much too easy. I sped through the game really quickly, and I didn't die once until I made it to one of the final bosses of the game. There aren't really any optional sidequests in this game either, so when you make it to the end you really already have seen everything, leaving little room for replay value. There are optional level ups to find that can be a little difficult to find, but just running from the beginning of the game to the end I managed to find all but one of them. There is a harder difficulty you can play the game on, but before you get to that you have to beat the game on the easy difficulty. As I said earlier, there is little to no replay value here, so its a little difficult to warrant a second playthrough unless you wait a few months. It would have been nice if you got to choose what difficulty you wanted to play the game on, since the Adventure Time cartoon really has an audience of all ages. While a lot of younger children would play this, so would the older, more hardcore audience of gamers. If there was a choice, then the people in the latter group would not be so irritated by the difficulty of the game.

Graphics/ Audio: The graphics in this game really do look like the cartoon; they are bright and colorful and the characters are really accurate representations of the characters from the show. The audio in this game is very good as well; the songs (especially the theme song on the title screen) are awesome and sound great. The sound effects during combat are very satisfying as well. One thing that the game is missing, however, is voice acting from the cast of the show. It's pretty easy to imagine their voices if you're familiar with the show, but it still would have been nice to have in the game.

In the end, I suppose I would only recommend this show to fans of the Adventure Time cartoon. The writing really is the strongest selling point of the game, and if you don't get it, you probably shouldn't get it. Although, I suppose if you're nostalgic for Zelda II, that would be another good reason to get it. This is one of the funniest games I have ever played, and I had a great time playing it, but honestly it is a little generic.