Go Diego Go – Save the Animal Families is one of the VTech V.Smile games that works with the VTech TV Learning or Pocket Learning systems. My daughter actually now has both the tv and pocket learning system. The pocket is nice because we can take this on road trips and she can play in the car.

She loves the selection of games that she has and seems to really enjoy playing the games where she’s the super hero or where she can save animals or where she can go on adventures. This game is one where she gets to help animals. Just in case there are those reading this that don’t know, Diego is Dora’s cousin. Dora regularly appears in Diego videos and Diego regularly appears in Dora’s. They help one another save animals or go on adventures! It’s a tremendous cross-marketing machine!

The Game

All of the VTech V.Smile games have a tremendous amount of learning involved. This particular game states that it helps teach the following things to children while they are playing:

Numbers, letters, shapes, matching, logic skills, Spanish, animals and singing

This particular game has the following sections for children to adventure in and play around:

Rescue Mission, Learning Zone, Sing Along and Animal Photo Album

In the Rescue Mission section there are 4 different areas to play in and adventure around in: Cloud Forest Rescue, Swinging in the Rainforest, Up the Mountain, and Flooded Forest Floor.

In Cloud Forest Rescue, a mother tapir needs assistance. Her babies are lost in the forest and Diego tries to hurry around to find her 4 babies and bring them back to their mother. During the adventure, the child helps by using a telescope to try to find the babies. When you see their eyes blinking, you have to hit a specific button to match up the animal that you are looking for with the one you find on your search. There are 2 levels of play on this game. On the easy level you are supposed to match an animal to a picture of the animal in the same position. On the difficult level, you are supposed to match an animal to a picture but the animal is in a different position. When you hit the appropriate button, you are matching the pictures with the animals and you are taking pictures of the animals for your photo album!

There are problems during this adventure. The Bobo Brothers are throwing items from the trees making the tree hop to get to the baby tapir difficult!

In Swinging in the Rainforest Diego hears a call for help from macaws. The macaw’s eggs are tangled up in vines and they are unable to get their eggs out to take them home. Diego is going to have to help them get the vines off and allow the macaws to get their eggs back to their home! But, first he has to find the eggs and where they are trapped! He will again have to use his telescope to find the eggs and then, he has to hop through the trees to get to them. He will have to jump if the trees are too far apart and use tools from his rescue pack.

Along the way, Diego can stop to inspect insects and other animals and learn about them. They run across leaf-cutter ants and he has a magnifying glass to look at them up close and he helps the ants that don’t have a pattern cut in the leaves get a pattern.

In this game the easy level has 3 vines to untangle from the macaws eggs and the difficult level has 4 vines!

In Up the Mountain Diego hears a plea from 4 chinchillas that have been trapped in the mountains. A rock slide has made their way back down the mountain impossible! In this section, Diego and your child have to pick the number of rocks needed to balance a board and they have to match. In the easy level there is only 1 side of the board that you need to place rocks. In the difficult level, you have to put the matching number of rocks on both sides of the board!

Even during this game, Diego can see animals or insects and you can learn a bit more about them and take pictures of them for the album! They meet a llama that will help Diego get up the mountain and the Bobo Brothers hinder Diego’s progress up the mountain!

In the Flooded Forest Floor adventure, Diego hears a cry for help from the red-eyed tree frog who is trapped by the river that rose during the rain. Tree frogs cannot swim, and the tree frog needs help! During the adventure, Diego has to help the tree frog jump between trees, avoiding birds in the process and help him get to the tree frog to the correct tree top!

In the easy level your child has to find the empty tree spot for the frog. In the difficult level your child must find the tree that has the fewest tree frogs living in it! There are whirlpools in the river that make this trip dangerous. But, there is a river dolphin that comes to help Diego while he is in the rough waters!

Next, the game switches to the learning zone. There are 3 games in this section, Camouflage Click, Find the Animal, and Find Baby Jaguar.

In Camouflage Click Diego has to find an animal in the camouflage and there are either letters or numbers that you have to follow to basically point out the animal that is hidden. It’s basically like a “connect the dots puzzle” that is around the animal. In the easier section, the child has a few dots to connect and in the difficult level, there are more dots to connect!

In Find the Animal, you have to get 3 pictures of the hidden animal in the forest to figure out what kind of animal it is! This is a hand/eye coordination game. In the easy level the animals move slower and the difficult level the animals move quickly!

In Find Baby Jaguar you have to know how to reach an animal quickly if you want to be an animal rescuer. In this section you have to choose an action word that describes what Diego should do in order to reach and rescue baby jaguar. The words are in both English and Spanish. In the easier level, there is only 1 action word to select and the difficult level there are 2 action words to select in order! So, if Diego needs to jump first and then run (jump over a mud pit and then run to baby jaguar) you need to pick the card that states jump run rather than run jump.

The second to last section has the sing along portion that allows you to sing with Diego. You get to select the song from a group and then you and Diego can sign along about the animals! They are cute, fun little songs!

In the last section you have a collection of pictures of all of the animals that you have taken along the rescue adventures you and Diego have done. In this section, you can look at the pictures and you can hear a little bit about the animals. So, if you did not hear some of the facts about the animals while you were on your rescue mission, you can hear about it in the album!

Overall Impressions

My daughter really enjoys learning new facts about the animals and trying to find the animals when they are hidden or lost in the games. This game has an age range for 3 – 5 year olds. I now feel that she is a bit bored by this particular game. She has played this game through a few times. But, she seems to enjoy the games that are for the 4 -6 or 6 – 8 age groups.

The challenges in this Go Diego Go – Save the Animals game were easily mastered for her, even at the difficult level. Had she gotten this a couple of years ago, she might have played it longer. But, relatives purchased this for her recently and she has played it a few times and now seems uninterested in it. She is focusing on other games with bigger, harder challenges that really test her abilities like math and reading! In a way, that is a good thing. In another way, this leaves the game barely used.

If you have a younger child that has this game system, it is a great way to be introduced to new animals, animal facts and a lot of different skills like matching, connecting the dots and some basic math and balancing acts. I think it would be a big challenge for the younger children. But, overall, I am thrilled with the challenges this game brought to my daughter and the fun facts about some animals she learned along the way. I am happy we have this game!

~Thanks for spending time with me today!~





Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 14.99
Type of Toy: Educational
Age Range of Child: 3 to 5 Years