"No, Mom! I swear! It was Dewy!" kids will try to explain. "He's the magical raindrop destined to cleanse the universe!"
"So Dewy's mission is to pee in your bed? That doesn't sound very cleansing to me..." the mothers will say while dragging their bed-wetting children by the ear to punish them. Dewy, on the other hand, will laugh menacingly into the night. A laugh so dark and evil (and menacing) that everyone at
Arkham Asylum will go, "What's with
that guy?"
Ah yes, Dewy, you have eluded me for quite sometime. I finally got my hands on Dewy's Adventure for the Nintendo Wii. I've beaten the first couple of levels of the first world, which isn't nearly enough for a
review, but perfect for some
impressions.
The game opens up to some
gorgeous artwork. I should have expected as much after playing the mess out of Elebits (or Eledees for some folk), which also had the same style of awesomely crafted art. However, like Elebits, it also has alarmingly
awful voice-acting. Everyone sounds like library volunteers. The framerate isn't as smooth as I hoped, but Dewy runs at a steady 30 fps. Perhaps I've been jaded by Metroid. The graphics won't blow you away, but it has smart texture-work.
The gameplay, however, is what Dewy is apparently all about. Dewy, who has a slippery butt, slides in whatever direction you tilt the controller. Marble Mania/Super Monkey Ball fans know what I'm talking about. Shaking the controller up and down causes some wind to blow; shaking the remote side-to-side causes an earthquake. Pressing up on the D-Pad makes the temperature hotter, and down makes it colder. Since Dewy is made of water (I secretly think he is Phazon), he'll turn to steam when it's hot and ice when it's cold. This opens up some neat tricks and puzzles. Dewy, as water, can't cross a lake. But, if you cool things down a bit, the lake will freeze and you can butt-slide across it.
Early into my adventure, the controls started to give me problems. Sliding Dewy around never feels accurate. He controls wrecklessly when you need to be careful. The main problem I've had is with jumping. The isometric view destroys my depth perception: it is incredibly hard judge your jumps. You can't correct your jumps in mid-air (much like the Ghost'n'Goblins series). Once your slippery water-butt leaves the ground you lose all control of Dewy. Case in point: the difficulty in butt-stomping a box. Dewy's shadow is so hard to see I can't tell if I'm even jumping over objects.
Apparently even IGN has trouble keeping Dewy on the stage.
Generously stolen and edited from IGN.COMI'm blaming the isometric view (which gave me a plethora of problems in Sonic 3D Blast). As of now, the game is still pretty fun when I'm not falling off of stuff. The game has a good try-to-collect-everything vibe where when the stage's exit appears, you try your damndest to avoid it to make sure you've saved all the little creatures, found all the health-shards, etc. Also, this game is very happy. VERY happy. Thousands of rainbows--it's enough to give you cavities.
Anyone else pick up this game? N+ would love to hear everyone else's thoughts! Oh, and if you're wondering where that scary Dewy picture came from, I was testing out a
new DS application.
Oh man. I can feel it. The mural's completion is at hand. Just one or two more days! I've updated the photo album with more pictures to view and comment on! No, seriously! The total time worked on this project over a span of 11 visits is a little more than 65 hours--and it's still not done. It's been a lot of work, and also a lot of fun--this Super Smash Bros. 
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