Cuteness Kills
It wasn't until now that I ever thought I would play something that in the end made me feel like I'd just finished with an interactive form of Blue's Clues and Teletubbies. Don't take that as this recent Wii game plays like a children's TV show with a bunch of disturbed actors trying to teach kids something worthwhile. No, that's not what Dewy's Adventure is about. The reason I describe Konami's latest Wii outing like that is due to the borderline sickening presentation of cuteness, all revolving around a bloody drop of water. That's some feat for the Elebits team eh?
Dewy is easily the most versatile water droplet we've ever seen. He was spawned from some kind of Great Tree in order to eliminate the threat of black rain, and that's exactly what your mission is. The evil Don Hedron has kidnapped all of the Eau, the off-the-wall name of your fellow creatures, and trapped them in seven different worlds, all plagued by his toxic aqua. That's literally the entire premise here.
How does our armless hero do this? Very simply, by sliding around on his ass Marble Madness/Mercury-style, either comparison works. The Wii remote [sideways] is the only requirement to play the game, and Konami did what they could to take advantage of the motion technology within to create a series of sizable tilting worlds, you don't control Dewy directly. It works alright in some cases, but absolutely sucks in others. Other than manipulating the Wii-mote to tip Dewy's environment, he can also jump and attack with the 1 and 2 buttons, and change forms with the D-Pad. With D-Pad up, Dewy transforms into a misty cloud, and while only wind from the area can move him, you can rise up by holding the attack button, creating a blast radius below, and send a shocking bolt to any unfortunate Hedron lackey below. Press down, and you have a wintery ice Dewy that not only slides around very quickly, but can spin-ram into enemies and objects, or jump up and perform a three hit combo. If you're in basic water form, jumping up and butt stomping is your offense.
As you navigate what's [hopefully] in between the edges across the game's seven worlds, you'll encounter a possible 100 Eau to save. They may be trapped in a ring of black mist, a rainbow-colored web-like thingy, some of the monsters themselves, or somehow, in crates. This is what unfortunately makes Dewy's Adventure really freaking boring and monotonous after the third or fourth world. You do the same damn thing in each region, and when it's not the most fun thing in the world to begin with, you notice. It's great that Konami did such a good job designing all the colorful, vibrant, and well-textured levels [although some bloom lighting would've looked awesome] while incorporating some fairly clever puzzles and obstacles, the whole tilting idea just feels old way too quickly, and with it not being the most cooperative mechanic ever, makes the game far less enjoyable. The camera can be very troublesome at times too, since it never rotates, so you either have to rely on seeing your shadow behind something massive, or pray that where you guess to jump to is somewhere solid for Dewy to land. Don't count on that happening.
If it also wasn't for the insanely painful sound effects, I wouldn't have had to cringe every time I accessed the game's menus. The blatant and unnecessary cuteness, while it may fit in its own creepy way, just isn't attractive for the older gamer, unless of course you work on Teletubbies. If you couple that with the unreliable gameplay, you wonder how kids are supposed to have fun. Seriously though, if I never hear those kinds of character sounds ever again, it won't be too soon. I won't even consider describing what you might hear in fear of lashing out even further. The music, thankfully, isn't nearly as bad, as there are a couple catchy tunes, but when everything else that is distracts you more, you almost start to hate Dewy's Adventure in ways that you shouldn't.
Hopefully by now it's been established that the fun in this game just doesn't last, because that's also why the multiplayer and Wi-Fi elements are brought down a couple rungs on the quality ladder. Sure it might be worth checking out, but it would obviously help if the game was entertaining to begin with, so think before bringing other people into the mix. Why subject others to the same frustration? Why is there even a 'Take Photo' option either? Who's going to care to screenshot what they do when every other Dewy's Adventure player can do the very same? If anything, I would want to take a picture of the stoic look on my face as I'm looking like I'm about to fall asleep when playing the third Act of the fifth world.
Ok, by now it's apparent that I've rather criticized this game. I don't necessarily mean to, but I'm calling it as I saw while playing. Dewy's Adventure really does have merits, because the game isn't broken, it just has one too many flaws and questionable design choices. At least the waggle mechanics make sense, in that pumping the Wii remote up and down causes Dewy to summon some wind, or shaking it back and forth results in an earthquake. But again, we can't emphasize enough that it doesn't feel satisfying when the core experience falls off the edge. Oh, and you'll do that plenty too. We certainly respect Konami for trying to bring Wii owners another new IP after their mostly acclaimed Elebits, but sorry, they just didn't cut it with Dewy. Maybe next time, but thanks anyway.