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jp's Drawn to Life (DS)
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| [December 18, 2009 11:17:26 AM]
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Yay!
The ending (after two hours of trying to beat the final boss) is rather sweet. The mayor dies before the final boss fight and Mari, her daughter, must assume the role of mayor. Jowee, her true love is about to leave the town to go on an adventure, but he stays. It's quite effective even if none of the characters ever say what they feel.
I do have a few unresolved questions, though. I unlocked (purchased) a series of special moves. But I was never able to do them. Huh?
Although I purchased a few stamps, I never figured out how to use them. They'd end up getting "stamped" in the wrong places. Sigh. At least I figured out how to use the other palettes I had purchased. It's a shame you can only use colors from one at a time, though.
In all, an interesting game. Although it dragged at times (most noticeably in the towns) I enjoyed the drawing aspects even if they weren't essential. I wonder whether, during testing, the team had an issue with people shooting themselves in the foot when drawing the objects they used in the game. For instance, I could, by mistake, draw a barely visible platform thus making it harder for me to see where I need to jump to and so on. Objects react via their bounding boxes, so falling wouldn't be a problem, it would just look odd.
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| [December 17, 2009 09:35:45 PM]
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I'm currently in the middle(?) of the last battle of the entire game. In the middle because otherwise I would have missed my train stop and also because I love the fact that I can hibernate the DS simply by closing it. Best design decision ever.
Just before starting the final showdown I realized that I had accumulated approximately 12,000 coins (or rapos or whatever they're called). I remember, from very early in the game, that if you deposited 10,000 coins in the wishing well, nice things might happen. They did! (and what a godsend, actually). Two interesting things happened. First, I got a whole bunch of extra lives that I really, really appreciated. (I've already lost about half!) Second, the well opens up a new "area" where there are little caricatures of the development team along with short little messages. It was nice to read them all before finishing the game even if one of the messages was a spoiler of sorts.
Well, on to the end boss...this boss challenge, as well as all the earlier ones, are noticeably more difficult than the rest of the game. It's taken me somewhat by surprise because I've been playing mostly under the assumption that the general difficulty level is toned down somewhat for younger kids (I presumed). The boss fights are pretty grueling though, which is a shock. Perhaps they're just really hard for me? I guess I'm having a hard time getting a sense of what a good challenge may be like, in terms of videogame difficulty, for a 10 year old.
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| [December 9, 2009 09:54:03 PM]
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I'm roughly halfway through and I'm having decidedly mixed feelings about my experience so far. I do recognize that I'm probably not the target audience (I think the game skews a lot younger), but still.
One of the draws of this game is the ability to draw things that are then used in the game. I've actually enjoyed drawing and coloring in my character and so on, even if the stylus isn't quite up to the task. Well, I'm not much of an artist either. However, I was still surprised by how crappy my drawings looked! Especially those that required me to color things in, rather than create from scratch. I then realized that the color palette available to me is much smaller than the one used for the main artwork in the game. Thus, whatever I do will always look poorer. That was a bit of a disappointment.
Other than that, the game is an interesting mix of platforming adventures (which I enjoy, for the most part) and Japanese RPG-style wandering around a town (which I don't enjoy, since I'd rather get back to the platforming parts). The town bits are a bit of a downer since I spend most of the time running from one end of the town to the other in order to do things I already know need doing but I can't do them until the right cue is triggered. Sigh.
In fact, the whole town aspect, while cute and relevant because it contextualizes your goals in the game, ultimately goes too far. Yes, you're the savior of the entire village and they treat you like a hero. Well, they do until they send you off on the lamest errands. It's a curious mix of condescension and admiration that I ultimately find a bit grating. Yes, I'm the hero... so why are you ordering me around all the time like I was a 5 year old running errands?
This entry has been edited 3 times. It was last edited on Dec 10th, 2009 at 10:54:10.
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jp's Drawn to Life (DS)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Friday 27 November, 2009
GameLog closed on: Friday 18 December, 2009 |
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