Drawn To Life: The Next Chapter (Wii) Review

First off, you'll notice that this version of the game wasn't actually made by 5th Cell, but instead packaged off to Planet Moon Studios, developers of Smarty Pants and Battle of the Bands. That bit of knowledge would set many alarm bells ringing, but Planet Moon have kept surprisingly close to the formula the original studio established. Perhaps a bit too close...

The game loads up in a typical fashion; click one of four profiles, write a name and you're away. Except then there is a twist rather dissimilar to usual start ups in that the game shows you how to use the creation tools by creating the Earth, Sun and Moon in whatever manner you wish. After that you meet your people, the Raposa, and send to them a hero, created however you want, to defend them from the villain Wilfre and his dark creatures.

The design is Drawn to Life's biggest strength, and in this game the concept has been improved greatly. Much like before you can create your hero, and at points in the adventure you can fill in the gaps for platforms, grappling hook points, creatures, even cars. The IR on the Wii remote will never match the pinpoint accuracy of sketching that a stylus can provide, and here the cursor is annoyingly floaty, but the tools at your disposal help remedy this until you get used to it. From zooming in and out, redo and undo, paint fill and erase, to pre-existing Templates if you don't particularly want to create anything (this applies to everything you are required to make), patience yields some rewarding results. Fancy putting Mario up to another adventure? You can. Want to give Zool a much-deserved second chance at the limelight? No problem. Maybe you have a desire to see Sonic in a console 2D game - much like yours truly - again? Not an issue. What is, however, is the actual platforming and exploring itself.

While setting design is varied between each group of levels (with old favourites jungles, shadows, and snowy environments), the requirements for actually getting to play these levels will put you off even beginning them. Opening up a level more often than not involves strolling across the Raposa village to find a certain someone, speaking to them, and then strolling back to the entrance to the world housing the levels, which will then open the level. Adding to that is a swarm of load points, which seem to pop up with every environment and area change, and are particularly irritating in-between gameplay and the editing menu. There is no excuse for the sheer amount of loading in this game, especially bearing in mind that nothing in Drawn to Life seems like it would tax the Wii hardware. Visuals look lush and clear, sort of LostWinds-like if you will, and the music is cheery and upbeat, if fairly repetitive, but nothing special or memorable. The levels themselves, the main meat of the game, take far too long to finish because of the pauses, and even with the solid controls and impressive physics of the platforms and lines you draw in, you'll grow tired of the stage long before you reach the goal. Vehicle use though, which you also get to design yourself, is a lot of fun to mess around with, and these sections are in a fair few of the levels.

The multiplayer offers four very poor minigames that completely fail to capitalise on the game's standout point of editing. Collecting coins littered in the levels allows you to buy new templates, and body features and parts in a shop located within the village. It is this, not the multiplayer, that extends Drawn to Life's longevity, despite adventuring being marred by a multitude of loading screens. As such, Dawn to Life: The Next Chapter would be ideal for young patient minds packed with imagination, or those that love making a gaming experience entirely their own, and nabbing everything along the way.