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Drawn to life is back, though sadly without the spark of the original.
Console: Nintendo Switch |
To help you better understand the premise of Two Realms I do feel I need to tell you the ending of the previous Drawn to Life game. The ending of the last game in the series, the Next Chapter, revealed that the entire world of the Raposa was nothing more than imaginary coma world of the lone human in the game, Mike. He landed in a coma after a car accident (which also killed his parents) and the game ends with him finally waking up.
Drawn to Life: Two Realms is set four years after this devastating ending. The Raposa have been relegated to his subconscious, though are still alive and have been busy expanding their village. The darkness, however, is rising once more and has now found a way to enter the real world. To stop the darkness the mayor of Raposa Village, Mari, appeals to the creator once more resulting in a new hero being created. Using the book of creation, the hero can travel between the Raposa and Human worlds to stop the rising darkness. Along the way, the hero not only helps out Mike with his personal struggles but the entire human town of Belleview.
I give the story of Two Realms props for
tackling the tragic ending of the previous game head-on. With how much of a
gut-punch and tragic that ending was, I would have thought that Two Realms
would have retconned it. They haven’t done that, instead of making it the most
integral part of the story, to mixed results. The story of the original games
was always a highlight. They were multi-layered and emotional, yet fun. Even if
some of the plot beats were rather standard, the dialogue was always well
written. While the latter is still true, there are a lot of little winks and
nods in it alongside a plethora of humour, the story of Two Realms just isn’t any
good. It has the makings of a good story, many interesting ideas like the
player jumping into people’s subconscious to help them out with personal
problems has potential. However, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
It fails to anything meaningful with its concepts, resulting in a lot of lost
potential.
All in all, the story is not terrible, it has some great ideas but fails to implement them in any interesting way. It just goes through the motions at a point and ends up shallow and forgettable.
The implementation of the drawing into the
gameplay is not handled as well. From an integral aspect to the entire game in
the original games, it’s now relegated to nothing more than a novelty. The only
real impact your drawing skills have is creating your own hero. Other moments
of drawing objects, like a statue, are nothing more than optional tasks. A far
cry from the original, in which you drew platforms for, well, you platforming,
weapons to defeat enemies and much more. Considering the name for the series is
literally DRAWN to Life this is a very disappointing development.
In its stead, Two Realms focuses on the concept of stickers. These stickers can be bought in shops alongside new templates for your hero using the coins you collect. There are two types of stickers. The first type of stickers can be used with your hero. These stickers include masks, backpacks, jetpacks, boxing gloves etc. Some easy to implement ‘upgrades’ the look of your hero. While some of the stickers do look really cool and I feel kids will like them very much they end up being superficial. It’s there for looks only and if you’re not interested in them, you basically have nothing to use all of you hard-earned coins for.
Here's a screencap of a level for your, so you can get a better idea of what I'm talking about. |
I’ve been pointing out Two Realms shortcomings a
lot in this review (there are a lot of them) but I do want to finish this
review in a more positive way. There are still two things to talk about and
they are without a doubt the game’s two biggest bright spots. The graphic and
the soundtrack. The pixel art of the game is outright beautiful. All characters
have multiple frames of animation to make their movement feel as smooth as
possible. They also have quite a few expressions and emotions that make them emote
successfully and feel much more alive. The sections that aren’t pixel art,
primarily the enemies, look good as well. Kind of reminds me of Paper Mario
actually with their thick white outline and that’s really not a bad thing at
all.
The soundtrack is beautiful as well. It’s the same style of tracks of the original. While the remixed tracks here aren’t as ‘catchy’ as those of the original, they are still very good and is quite relaxing. So yeah, the game looks and sound outright beautiful.
Conclusion
So, what’s the verdict on Drawn to Life: Two Realms? Well, just like I said in the opening this game is a mixed bag. I think the best way to describe my feelings toward this game is this: while I’m happy I played and finished it, I don’t really feel like ever playing it again. I had fun with it. There were some fun moments, some neat ideas and there is a lot of potential that a sequel could built on. However, there are just too many problems, too many frustrations, for me to play this game again any time soon.
Would I recommend Two Realms to anyone? If you’re either a fan of the series, interested in what Two Realms has to offer or have a kid who might enjoy it, then I would consider buying it. Considering the game is only 10,- it’s pretty easy to just pick the game up and see what’s it’s about and put the game down if you don’t like it. Just be aware of all of the game’s problems and that it could easily end in frustration and disappointment.
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