Nintendo Okie

Yesterday we brought you our review for Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter on DS.  Today we take a look at the Wii version of the game.  Essentially a remake, and not a true sequel of the DS original, The Next Chapter provides an as to date unique experience on the Wii. 

The plot of the game revolves around a number of items that belong to the different Raposa villagers going missing.  These items have been hidden throughout a number of different themed environments and it’s up to you as the hero to find them and return them to their owners.  You’ll create your hero at the beginning of the game and from there travel to lush jungles, dark themed environments and more. 

Right from the beginning you’ll notice some glaring issues with trying to put this style of game on the Wii.  The beauty of the DS system is that you are touching the screen and for the most part it’s essentially like drawing on a piece of paper.  The Wii Remote, while accurate to where you’re pointing does not offer the same tactile feedback of the handheld and drawing feels awkward.  You just can’t get the level of detail and accuracy on Wii that you can with the DS touch screen.  One of the first environmental objects I was asked to draw was a bridge.  I drew what I thought was a good bridge and when it was in the level I was walking well above it in mid air. 

The platforming elements of the game themselves are for the most part boring and uninspired.  There’s no difficulty to them and you very well may find yourself bored very quickly.  Story elements take place outside the games levels themselves and you’ll be going back to the hub world after every level to deliver messages or items to different villagers.  This will mean having to traverse from one side of the world to the complete other to deliver something and then turn around and go right back to get to the next level.  There are a lot of things that can be found hidden in hard to reach areas of the levels and for veteran gamers looking for a challenge it can be a lot of fun trying to find all of these hidden templates, color patterns and objects.  It will add a bit of depth to an otherwise easy platformer.

Also during the game you’ll be asked to stop the action to draw mostly useless background elements, that while can be a bit engaging really bring the action to a halt way too often.  The beauty of the DS version was that you were only asked to draw what was necessary to complete the level.  Its fun to see the lizard you drew sitting on trees, but in the end it’s completely unnecessary and a waste of time.  There are a lot of different types of platforms and other elements that you’ll be asked to draw and the way they’re incorporated is quite clever.  Different colored platforms have different properties and many times you’ll combine two or more of these types to create a multi-part platform.  This could be putting a solid block down setting a physics based one on top of that to reach a springy platform.  It’ll tax your puzzle solving skills and is one of the more difficulty elements to the game. 

Visually the game is quite nice to look at.  The drawn characters and elements fit into the game a little better than they do on the DS.  Though not as pretty as the DS game, the art style does fit nicely with this game. 

Once you’ve finished the main story there are a number of multi-player mini games that you can play.  The are versions of different sports like basketball, hockey, soccer and volleyball.  They’re not well implemented and they’re not anything you’re going to play more than once just to say you did. 

All told Drawn To Life: The Next Chapter has some good qualities, but they’re greatly outweighed by the bad.  The story moves along a bit faster than the handheld version, but the constant back tracking, no sense of danger and the constant drawing will leave a bad taste in your mouth. 

Final Score: 2/5  Below Average

Review copy of the game provided by THQ.  Screenshots courtesy of Kotaku & IGN.