The Good: Drawing is really cool, platforming is fun, lots of secrets, charming presentation, awesome music, great control, very creative premise.
The Bad: Last few levels are very repetitive, boring level design, easy difficulty, frustrating bosses, padding, cliché ending.
Drawn to Life is an underrated gem where you draw things to advance you through different levels of a platform game. It's too bad that no one even remembers it because it is a great idea. This is one of my more nostalgic games. I remember seeing my cousin playing it and telling me about it. I played it a couple times, but I never beat it, until just recently. With the game on my mind, I will know tell you why I think it's a load of fun.
Let's start with the selling point- the drawing. There are lots of unique things to draw- from snowboards, to buildings, to whale helicopters. It really let's your creativity take over yourself. It's also a lot of fun making things look how you want to.
The platforming is fun, too. There are a lot of places to explore and early on, it doesn't feel repetitive at all. It's the last few levels that are extremely repetitive. You basically have to jump over and over again just to get to one area of the level. Boring. And it happens in multiple sections in one level.
The level design is unimpressive. It bland, boring, and every level feels the same. They add some things to make it slightly more interesting, like your creations reacting to the environment, but it just isn't enough. They're made a little better with the weapons you get. You get a snow shooter, an acorn shooter, a starfish shooter, and a giant sword. It adds a little variety in how you kill your enemies.
The presentation is charming. The art design is simple, yet it looks nice. All the characters look adorable and the shadow creatures look threatening. And the music is awesome. That's personally my favorite thing about the game. All the music is epic. They range from calm to intense to beautiful.
The controls are great. They work well and are very responsive. You get a jump button, a punch button, an attack button, and you use the control pad to move (obviously). They make platforming much easier.
Speaking of each, that's what this game is. Easy. There isn't a whole lot of challenge, which partly comes from the level design. You never feel threatened going through the game, unless you're low on HP. The bosses are tougher, but they are overly frustrating. It's so hard to kill some of them, it gets ridiculous. There's a difference between too hard, to easy, and perfect difficulty.
This game uses padding to death. If you don't know what padding is, it's adding a whole bunch of useless crap just to make the game longer. When you're in the town, the game has you run back and forth and back and forth unnecessarily just to extend the length of the game. For example, I was in the east, I had to talk to the mayor in the center, I went to the south to tap the eternal flame, I went to the north to clear away the darkness guarding the area, I went to the center to talk with the mayor, I went to the north to talk with someone, I went to the center to talk with the mayor, I went to the north to talk with a couple of people. And that was all at the same time. And all that padding leads to a clichéd ending. I would tell you what happens, but I don't want to spoil it. Just expect to see something you've seen numerous times before. I least the credits music is awesome.
Overall, this game is a lot of fun. Flawed it may be, but there's just a lot I love about it. Even the small things, like the look of your character when it's hit. You're character has a total of 5 looks before it is dead, which is also its HP. It goes from Fully clothed to partially naked to half naked to mostly naked to completely naked to dead. It's great! You have to play this game some time. It's a lot of fun.