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In a far off land, young Prince Pixel is out exploring the castle one day when he stumbles upon a trap door and a secret basement. Inside he finds a magical paintbrush that makes drawings come to life. While playing around with it, Prince Pixel accidentally releases a demon that was sealed deep inside the castle. Now Prince Pixel must use his new magic paintbrush to draw monsters to fight the demon's minions and save his kingdom!
Graffiti Kingdom is a sequel to Magic Pengel, a PlayStation 2 game where you could draw monsters and have them battle others in Pokemon-style turn-based skirmishes. In Graffiti Kingdom, you still draw monsters in the same fashion, but the rest is a totally different game. You directly control the drawn monsters' attacks and movements in a 3D platformer style game. When you start the game you can only be Prince Pixel, who can't attack. Using the magic paintbrush, Pixel can turn into any monster he draws. You start with one pre-made monster, a rainbow colored teddy bear. Also, if you wave the paintbrush near a monster as Prince Pixel, you can be that monster for a limited amount of time. Sometimes monsters drop cards and if you collect them, you can be that monster for an infinite amount of time. In this way, you can go through the whole game without drawing a monster if you don't want to.  But half the fun is drawing your own monsters and seeing how they attack. By entering a save point, you can go to the drawing mode and create your own battle critters. 2D images you draw become 3D characters, and you have a surprisingly large amount of control over how you want your creatures to look. After drawing, you can edit your monster's attacks, walking movement, and voice. If you drew arms and legs on your creation, you can do punches and kicks. When you gain enough levels, you can add other parts like tails, wings, and weapons! The graphics in Graffiti Kingdom are very simple by PS2 standards, but the worlds made out of cardboard cutouts and Lego™ blocks still have charm. The cutscenes and music are also delightfully cute. The drawing tools can be a little clunky at times, but with practice you will draw better. Plus there's a good in-game tutorial on how to draw. Unfortunately, the play control and camera angles in the 3D action-platform sections are less than desirable, especially when trying to make precise jumps. But if you can ignore these quibbles and are patient enough to learn the drawing tools, you'll have a unique and satisfying experience with Graffiti Kingdom.  
Even though there's a lot of punching and kicking and fire breathing going on here, Graffiti Kingdom isn't all that violent. Defeated drawings don't die, their colors just fade and they disappear. Reading skills are helpful for understanding the drawing tutorials. Kids might get a little frustrated at the clunky controls in both the drawing and platforming sections. But being able to create your own characters and control them in a video game will surely be a treat for any child, and will probably be well worth the hassle of practicing drawing.
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