Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter
Score: 92% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: THQ Developer: 5th Cell Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1, 2 (Multicard Wireless) Genre: God Games/ Adventure/ Edutainment
Graphics & Sound: Games, like life, are what you make of them. This has never been more true than in Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter. Specifically, that's because in this game, you actually get to draw items in(to) the game. Using the DS touch screen as your canvas, you get to draw the main hero (and replacements, if you like), as well as various interactive environment pieces, such as platforms, weapons, and turbo rings that launch your avatar quickly into the air. There are even some "Action Drawing" areas where you have to draw lines for your character to use as ledges to make its way up to a hard to reach area. The voice acting in the game is mostly generic, though cute, "reaction" sounds; not words, but sort of suggestive of the general feeling the text is attempting to emote. Most of the dialogue in the game is written. However, there are some places where the sentiment is backed up by some voice, for places where the characters are celebrating ("Yay!") or disappointed ("Aww...") or that sort of thing. These voices are high-pitched and way too cute, matching the Anime artistic style of the game.
Gameplay: Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter is part old-school RPG, part side-scrolling platformer, part puzzle game and all edutainment, but in a way that sneaks learning into the game when you're not paying attention. The inhabitants of the game are aware of your existence. Not just your character, but you. They will address you from time to time, referring to you as the "Creator." They will call on you to draw various items that need to be in the game but are, for some reason or another, missing. You will also be tasked with returning color to buildings that have been stripped of color and left black and white. This is done by simply moving the stylus back and forth across it to "fill it in" with the appropriate colors. You will also get to create an avatar to control in the game. You use this avatar to complete missions such as collecting jars of color or finding lost items in side-scrolling platforming action. Sometimes, in the middle of these side-scrolling parts, you will encounter an area that has an impossible jump to get you from one side of the screen to the opposite side. In these sections, you are allowed to draw a certain number of lines (and only in certain parts of the screen), which your avatar can then use as platforms to cross the screen with. These are essentially puzzles to solve before you can proceed.
Difficulty: For the most part, Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter is an easy game. Furthermore, it's sickly cute with its little Anime characters, making it a good game for younger gamers. Still, younger gamers and older gamers alike can enjoy seeing their own artwork incorporated into their game. More skilled artists are likely to challenge themselves to do their best and most creative work, while no matter what your platforms look like, as long as you paint something, they're usable. The most difficult part I encountered were some of the puzzle sections. In these sections, you are faced with a large gap that you can't jump across, and you are tasked with the job of drawing lines to serve as platforms for your avatar to jump between to be able to reach the other side. Younger gamers may need some assistance for the first one or two of these, to get the idea, but once you have the general idea, these are fairly easy to solve.
Game Mechanics: The ability to create game content and see it in action is a wonderful thing. Anyone who has ever worked on a game mod knows this. However, it is awesome when this creative outlet is made available without the need to know how to do 3D modeling or how to program in some scripting language. Spore makes this sort of modding much more accessible, but Drawn to Life and now Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter reduce the necessary skills to sketching and drawing, making it possible for even small children to see their creations in a playable game. Quite frankly, Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter takes everything that made me love Drawn to Life and builds on it. The Next Chapter definitely has something for everyone, regardless of age or artistic skill.
-Geck0, GameVortex Communications AKA Robert Perkins
Related Links: Game Vortex's Review of Drawn to Life: Spongebob Squarepants Edition Game Vortex's Review of Drawn to Life for DS THQ's Website Official Drawn to Life Website
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