Review: Dora Links (Dora’s Explorer Girls)
Written on Oct 19, 2009 by Jaime and filed under Mattel, Reviews
The new Dora Links doll has finally arrived after much anticipation. Dora links is an, “interactive, computer compatible doll,” for ages 5-8. Dora has grown up and lives in her virtual world of Puerto Verde, (a fictional beachside city) with her four best friends-Naiya, Emma, Kate, and Alana. The girls go to school, and work together in their community to help keep it “clean and green.”
The Dora doll, clothing, Explorer Girl friends and related accessories are really designed to be used in a traditional offline doll play environment first and foremost. However, Mattel has also integrated online gameplay to give the Dora doll an intertactive gaming experience for kids. This distinction is important, as the online world is heavily dependent on the offline play and purchase of Dora Links accessories and figures. Parents need to view the online experience as an accessory to the physical goods, not the other way around.
The two worlds of online and offline play merge well together though, giving kids a truly unique experience in the doll world. We’ve not seen anything like this before, though we fully expect this to be a developing trend, especially if Dora Links is as popular with young girls as we expect it will be.
Getting Started
The Dora Links doll comes in bright packaging and looks exciting to open. Once you get through all of the plastic and twisty ties (uggh!) girls are immediately ready to play with the doll and a few included accessories (purse, chair and hair brush). The doll also comes with a stand to help Dora stand up while she is connected to your computer. She comes dressed in a cute pink dress with purple leggins and orange mary jane shoes (very stylish). Also included is the installation CD, bright pink USB cable and a one-page getting started guide.
The installation process is fairly simple and quick. Upon inserting the CD, it will automatically launch the installation program and step-by-step instructions will appear on your screen. Once the software update download is complete, you then need to create a password for your account. After your account is created, you can plug in the included USB cable into the side of your doll (parental help will probably be needed for this process) and connect it into your computer to get started!
Online World
After launching the Dora Links program, you will be introduced to Dora and her world through a series of tutorials. Once you have completed the startup sequence, you can begin exploring Puerto Verde or engage in a series of mini-games.
The main attraction for kids is going to be solving mysteries with Dora. Dora Links currently has six mysteries, but more will be added regularly. Some mysteries take longer than others, the time commitment will be largely dependent on kid’s abilities to navigate Puerto Verde to find clues and interact with people in the game. The mysteries save kid’s work though, if not completed in one sitting.
As kids complete mysteries, they’re awarded Dora dollars. With Dora dollars, kids can “buy” virtual goods like new outfits, trendy furniture and other items around the city. These items are available to Dora throughout the game.
Kids who enjoy dress-up will really love all the options available with Dora Links. Not only does Dora need to change her online appearance to solve some of the mysteries, but girls can put her in hundreds of different outfits and change her hairstyle and makeup for different looks. The physical doll can participate in changes too. Inside Dora’s head are several motors and lights that let kids control part of her hair length, eye color, blush and lipstick intensity and the three LEDs that are her earrings and necklace.
Being able to modify Dora’s physical appearance is certainly a big hit with the kids, it brought them back to the PC on a regular basis so they could tweak her appearance (just watch a young girl’s face the first time she figures out how to change Dora’s eye color, it’s a pretty spectacular event for them). The doll also brings kids back to the computer by reminding them of mysteries and the like. Dora’s messages are updated when the doll is connected to the computer, so kids will get a perpetually changing offline play experience. Within the online experience, not only will kids be able to hear and read the game instructions for instance, but the Dora doll will also speak to them, providing a special immersive experience.
Following are a series of videos showing the physical transformations of the doll that kids can control (note: the blush only pulses on video, the lights don’t do that with the human eye).
The online world isn’t perfect though. We found several kids who got frustrated with the mysteries because they couldn’t navigate Puerto Verde very well, or didn’t know they had to find a hardware store to borrow a ladder for instance. The game is sensitive to those who are struggling though, if kids are taking a long time to solve a particular part of the mystery, more clues will be available that hopefully send them in the right direction.
There are a few other hiccups too. some of the features that are supposed to be in the online world aren’t quite ready yet. Kids are promoted to click on the characters with exclamation points over their heads to learn more about them, but none of those characters currently exist. It’s clearly a case of Mattel wanting to get the world out there for early Dora Links buyers, but we suspect the experience will be much better by the time most of these dolls go online the afternoon of December 25th (hopefully Mattel’s servers are ready).
Just know when your child gets started with Dora Links, that there will probably need to be parental help until they get the hang of the menus, navigating around Puerto Verde and so on.
The only other major concern we have is in the messaging on the Dora Links site. Many of the buildings and most of the mini-games are locked. If kids want to go into a locked building, they are prompted to have their parents go to the website to learn how to unlock them. Unfortunately the website doesn’t tell parents how to solve this problem though. The solution goes back to the offline world – each Dora Links accessory comes with a unique code that kids can enter to unlock new areas of Puerto Verde, or some of the dozens of mini-games. Each Dora Links accessory or doll package has an icon on it,and gives kids an idea of what its unique code will unlock in the virtual world.
Bottom Line
Dora Links breaks a tremendous amount of new ground in doll space that’s not been very innovative or very interested in integrating new technology to this point. It’s important though that parents remember the online tools are an add-on, and they should be thinking of Dora Links as normal doll play with the addition of the Dora physical feature customizations and the Dora Links online content.
Given the technology involved, the retail price of $59.99 for the Dora doll is more than reasonable, we’ve even seen it discounted in retail down to $50. Even for the suggested price, there’s a tremendous amount of value in terms of both fun doll play and the added online experience. Girls are going to go nuts for this doll, in fact they already have, the Dora Links articles we’ve written here before are the most popular on our site.
The bottom line is that if you’re a parent with a daughter in the targeted age group of 5-8, this is likely a must-buy this Holiday season. The doll is very well made, the physical customizations will make girls delighted and the online gameplay is going to continually evolve and get better over the years.
Editor’s Rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars – Editor’s Choice
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