Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter (Wii) - Review by Chris

Introduction

After having been met with critical acclaim and success on Nintendo's DS handheld, THQ have continued to ply audiences with more from the innovative Drawn to Life series on that platform. Yet, they felt that it was time to take the game forward and so decided to develop the next title in the series for the Wii, alongside the DS version, with development falling to Planet Moon Studios. Bringing a game up to a more powerful console can only mean good things as it would allow the series to grow and reach new gamers, but it has gone wrong in the past. Is this a game that has bridged the gap unscathed or should THQ head back to the drawing board?

Gameplay

The story goes that the village of Raposa has been seeing numerous thefts as of late. As a result, townsfolk and the mayor start jumping to conclusions and blame one of their own who is nowhere to be seen. To tackle these thefts, they call upon the Creator to send them a hero and at this point you create the character that you'll be playing for the entire game. After initial investigations, it soon transpires that the initial culprit is not to blame and that the evil Wilfre has returned once again, complete with his twisted and dark army of creations, and is on the lookout for the fabled "Items of Power" that are said to be so powerful that they could destroy the Creator itself. And so, complete with the ability to draw your own objects and paths, it is up to you as the hero to save Raposa Village and its inhabitants once again. Straight from the get go, the main gameplay element, which has been pivotal in making the previous games stand out as being innovative, surfaces and you'll be asked to draw the basic elements for the story, such as the world that the village and it's people inhabits as well as your character. And from that point on, the game quickly moves you into finding out what is going on.

Gameplay takes the form of a side scrolling platformer with some puzzle elements thrown in. From the hub world of Raposa, you'll have access to various buildings and stores as well as portals that give you access to the levels through which you'll have to trek, with worlds becoming unlocked once you have completely cleared the previous one. The hub world does present some issues because of its linearity though. With it being on a 2D plane, there's a lot of backtracking which does become tiresome as your character isn't the quickest thing alive. Villagers and the mayor will stop you from time to time or ask you to speak to certain people who'll give you main objectives for the level you're about to play through and on occasion, some will give you a side quest to complete if you wish. However, these aren't compulsory so you can leave them if you want but they do help to flesh out the sometimes mundane levels and objectives you have to complete. The platforming is rather basic but it's never boring and the puzzles follow a similar pattern but will have you scratching your head for a short time trying to figure out the best way to approach things. A nice inclusion to the Wii game is that the platforming doesn't stop when paths need to be created. The game provides you with various colours of dotted boxes throughout the levels that you can draw within to create what you need. Some will create paths and stay as they are while other boxes allow you to draw shapes that drop out of the box and can be stacked to give you some height while another turns all lines you draw into trampoline like items to bounce you through the level. It's incredibly intuitive and makes for some really fun moments that allow the game to stand out as innovative.

The game attempts to draw you into the gameplay more than competing titles do by giving you the Action Drawing tool which allows you to create a huge number of items to fill up the stages, from arbitrary things such as level decoration, power-ups for your character or springs and platforms to help you progress through the levels. And the tool works but it is one of the drawbacks to the actual gameplay. On the DS, it was easy enough to create and draw things in detail and accurately because you had the stylus and the touch screen. But on the Wii, the Wii-mote is the only input device and it doesn't allow for easy drawing and to get anything to rival the templates on offer, which you'll probably opt to use more often than not, you'll have to spend excessive amount of time and in the end, it's not really worth it. All in all, the single player will last a considerable amount of time, with 5 worlds on offer each housing a varying amount of levels which can take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to complete, and there are plenty of unlockables for your creation tool to help you create even more unique characters and items. To top it off, a multiplayer option is included where two players can draw their characters and team mates and battle it out against one another in team sports, such as hockey, basketball, volleyball or football. It's a welcome touch but doesn't really provide much in the way of excitement.

Controls

The game controls relatively well, having you use the Wii-mote and Nunchuk for a standard platforming setup with no sign of motion controls or gestures in sight. You have very little to comprehend though, with a button used for jumping, punching and for communicating with people or easels to bring up the drawing screen. It's nice to have a game that doesn't layer on a multitude of controls for mechanics that are rarely used but the controls aren't without its issues. Platforming can be tricky and due to the not entirely precise nature of the jumping mechanic and your movement, you'll often find yourself falling off of platforms or missing them entirely. It's something that becomes more and more prevalent as the game progresses into the latter stages where things get more complicated but with time, you'll adjust so the problems do become minimal somewhat. The biggest issues, however, come from the drawing screen. As has already been mentioned, it's not particularly easy to draw your own objects and you'll more often than not opt for the plentiful templates on offer to get the job done but the problems arise due to their being no tactile object on which you're drawing. Whereas on the DS you have the physical touch screen, on the Wii you're simply drawing in mid-air and so doing precise drawings will take far longer than it otherwise should. It's also not helped by the IR pointer lagging behind your movement.

Graphics

The game's visuals are well done giving a decent level of detail, to which you can add through the various easels placed throughout the game's levels and hub world, but the overall feeling is one of having seen it all before but done to a much higher standard. The game has moved into a pseudo 3D look, with 3D graphics making up the entire presentation, with the exception of your character and the objects you place, and runs on a 2D plain in a similar way to the New Super Mario Bros. games with a nice variety of worlds to explore, from a shadow engulfed city to an icy tundra. But as has been said, the graphics, while showing a good level of detail, do look somewhat basic in comparison to some of the competing titles on the market, and that includes the likes of LostWinds on Nintendo's WiiWare service. Having the ability to draw your own creations into the game is a nice innovation but given the interface and how difficult it is to draw, you'll prefer to opt for the templates on offer but if you do decide to draw then it doesn't matter what you draw as anything will do the job but bear in mind that it'll all look crude in comparison to everything else. Occasionally, the game does suffer some frame rate issues, which is strange given the gameplay style, and there are some clipping issues, which come as a result of your own drawings being put into the game.

Sound

The music that you'll hear when playing never really steps up and makes you take notice. It's not a bad thing as it's the gameplay that one should be focusing on. But that being said, while it may languish more in the background, the music isn't that bad, setting the atmosphere well and creating a level of ambience that helps the game move along nicely. Sound effects are equally minimalistic apart from the odd exception but again, they get the job done nicely and never feel out of place for what you're doing.

Final comments

Drawn To Life: The Next Chapter has managed to cross the boundaries between the two consoles, providing a decent platforming game. However, it's one that is far from the product it should have and could have been. While levels are lengthy and the game continues to show the innovative Action Drawing tool, it just doesn't fully come alive on the Wii with the drawing tool not really working well with the Wii-mote interface. It's a good game and fans of the DS iterations will definitely enjoy it, as will newcomers to the franchise. Just don't expect it to blow you away in any of its departments.

Pro: Lengthy single player, colourful presentation looks good if a little basic, Action Drawing tool makes for some interesting platforming...
Con: ...But it doesn't work as it should do, some graphical issues, platforming becomes convoluted very quickly
Final score: 6.8

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