Nintendo Wii: Dewy's Adventure Review

My first Wii review and like the rest of my reviews, it is very wordy. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing? Anyway, here is my take on the game which, has changed a tad since my first initial review on the game I made last month. Sorry for the pics, I took them with my digital and it doesn't like my CRT HDTV too much.

Title = Dewy's Adventure
Platform = Nintendo Wii
Genre = Platform (Tilt mechanic)
Released = 2007
Players = 1 - 4
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First for those that don't know, the game was made by the same creators who brought us Elebits. The cartoon drawing cutscenes at the beginning and such mimic the look of that used in Elebits. I think some of the same annoying voice actors were brought back as well... In the game we take on the role of a magical dew drop by the name of Dewy. Dewy has been created and brought down to rid the land of the ominous black rain and the evil Don Hedron to restore beauty and purity to the world.

The game is more or less a platformer but with a marble madness twist. You see, controlling Dewy is done by tilting the Wii remote, which in turn tilts the gameworld Dewy is navigating like a giant labyrinth. The tilting naturally causes Dewy to move towards the direction in which you tilt. Tilt just a little and Dewy will wiggle slowly in the direction you're tilting. Tilt more and Dewy naturally moves a bit faster and requires more time to stop and turn. Dewy doesn't just slide around all over however, he does have some powers. Powers that are required to navigate the worlds he explores such as the ability to change the surrounding temperature. Selecting it to be cold will cause Dewy to form into Ice Dewy. As ice you have the ability to slide over frozen ponds and deal out more damaging attacks. Some enemies even get frozen when freezing the area allowing you a few seconds of time to attack them first without fear of damage. You can also increase the temperature, which in turn will cause Dewy to form into Mist Dewy or cloud. As a cloud Dewy can then target and unleash a powerful lightning bolt capable of killing lesser enemies in one hit and stunning most others for a few seconds. However, in cloud form Dewy cannot move about the world unless acted upon by wind currents. You also shake the Wii remote while playing to cause earthquakes and windy gusts to blow about. These are used for some of the puzzle elements of getting past some barriers in the various worlds. Finally, Dewy can and must jump around sometimes to reach higher ledges and areas in each level to get about to the stage goal.

A typical level will begin with Dewy in standard water mode dropping in at the beginning of the level. You then slide about defeating enemies wtih the various attacks and locating your buddies who have been held captive. Freeing your buddies will unlock areas in the game such as character galleries, music, and photographs...yeap...photos...a bit on that later. Some areas of a level will require you to defeat all the enemies before the barrier will lower or platforms appear or mystery boxes containing keys, and health items to appear. Some of the levels even contain a mid level boss before completing the stage. Some of the pathways in a level are obvious and can be easily seen. In fact the main pathway through a level will have arrow signs and markers telling you which direction to go. Some will require careful observation and listening to know where some of your buddies are located on platforms you can't quite see. In these cases you either have to find an alternate route to reach them, or look for something in the enviroment that might help you get across large gaps. For indeed, Dewy in all of his power can fall off the ledges of the world and lose a health drop in the process. Falling into ponds and getting hit by the baddies will also cause Dewy to lose health.

Graphically, this is a pretty impressive game. I've already seen some things in this game that give me a pretty close idea of what to expect Super Mario Galaxy to look like. There are lots of bright vibrant colors throughout each stage with each of the stages being themed from something like jungles, icy tundras...etc. There are lots of glittery particle effects and the animation present on Dewy and the enemies is very smooth. The game appears to run at about 30 frames but it isn't so fast paced that it requires anything more. Aliasing is still present though and even on my 30inch HDTV it isn't much of a bother or noticable in most places to me. The backgrounds are the only disappointment here. In the videos of the game shown prior to release it looked as if the backgrounds were also 3D and were using the depth of field blur effect. In reality the backgrounds come in and out during the level as you play. This is a cool effect, but gets killed by the fact that once a part of the level goes into the background and blurs it shows heavy pixelation and artifacting as if they were zoomed in jpegs. Even with this, Dewy and all the other characters have excellent shading and texturing on them. The textures and bump mapping are especially impressive on the bosses. All in all, Dewy's Adventure is one of the prettiest games I've seen on the Wii.

In the area of sound, the game seems to be locked in Dolby Pro Logic II mode and the options do not give you the choice to change between mono, stereo, or dolby as most other games do. I can therefore only assume the game is already in Dolby Pro II mode since the logo is prominent on the disc case. You can adjust the sound volume of the effects, music etc individually if needed, which is nice. There aren't any options to change the display. As a result Dewy's adventure seems to fix the display mode based on what your Wii is set to. Since my Wii is set to widescreen 16:9 and 480P Dewy's Adventure is also showing up in this mode by default. You can also adjust the tilt sensitivity in the options between low, medium and high. To be fair though, I found the medium setting (Default) to be the best thus far.

There is also some limited multiplayer in the game. You can edit and create custom levels on which to have up to four players play at once against each other in 4-way split screens on one TV. You can also send created and edited levels to friends using Wii-Connect24. However Wi-Fi multiplayer is not an option. The game also has both the basic story mode doing each level one by one to complete the story and unlock everything, or you can select the Goody mode. This is the mode required for multiplayer games and level editing. There is also some single player levels offering different challenges such as racing against the clock, collecting stars, and defeating all the enemies in set amount of time. These other game modes offer some additional variety to the game when the main story mode isn't as interesting any longer. You can also take in-game screenshots as you play the game. This is done by simply pausing the game. Choosing the photograph option and taking the picture. From that you can select the photo gallery in the goody mode and send the pics to your friends via Wii-Connect 24. It basically works the same as it does for Metroid Prime 3 if you've played that and unlocked the screen grabber tool, then you know what to expect.

There are few cons with this game however. I've already mentioned my disappointment with the static background images. Other issues are the games main control itself. Basically Dewy is supposed to slide according to which direction and how far you have the Wii remote tilted. In most cases, the game doesn't seem to sense this movement very accurately all the time. I've even had instances where Dewy would get stuck in the game levels on obstactles. Jumping will free him from this, but I frequently would end up jumping off the ledge to free myself causing some health to be lost. Many places require some leaps of faith to find the next area you should get to or large jumps that can be difficult to gauge the distance and direction for accurately. Many times, I would jump towards an area I needed to get to only to find I was a smidging off and would end up falling off the side loosing some health. You never really feel like you fighting the control per se, but it does have some lag to it that takes getting used to. In my opinion I think the game would have been easier to control and perhaps moved even smoother graphically if Dewy was the only thing you were controlling. In other words tilting the remote to move Dewy instead of tilting the remote to move the whole level. Another con against the game is while the music is very good and uplifting, some modes of music don't fit the action very well. Listening to the music in the gallery reminds me of this more. Music while you're invincible sounds more like it should be menu selection music etc. Just seems off. In addition, the sound effects seemed muddy and Dewy's voice and the sounds of his buddies called Eaus will irritate you pretty quickly. In addition the game seems easy for the first few levels, but quickly gets frustratingly difficult. Many leaps of faith type jumps begin to appear later in the game. In addition some of the mid-level bosses can be quite nasty to deal with. The last main boss I have yet to still defeat!!!

All in all I do find Dewy's Adventure to be a very fun and addicting game. You're rated at the end of each level based on number of buddies saved, time, items found...etc. This lends replay value so you can strive to get those higher rankings on the levels. This game also has a feature I haven't seen on any other Wii games to date. If you fail to get past a boss and then quit the game without deafeating them, you will likely find a message waiting on your Wii from the game. The messages usually contain a small pic of the boss you were trying to defeat and a tip on how to possibly beat them. This was most unexpected and is a welcome addition I would like to see added to more games. The graphics are very nice (Just don't look at the backgrounds much), and the music is mostly lively and fits the scenes well in most cases. The controls will take some getting used to, but once you do you shouldn't have too much trouble and shouldn't find yourself fighting them too often.
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Graphics = 9 (Some of the most detailed bosses I've seen ever.)
Sound = 6 (Sound effects are muddy and most of the music is forgetable. Still it is at least in Dolby II mode)
Controls = 5 (Takes much getting used to and does have some slight lag to it)
Challenge = 9 (Game starts off easy, then gets frustrating on the later levels and bosses)
Replay = 8 (Lots of items to try and find defeating the enemies and getting higher grades ensure you'll come back)

Overall -^CB^- grade = 7 (Worth playing through, but not likely to be a favorite)