Hi guys. What's going on with you? I'm doing okay, nothing new.
Anyway, here's a review for Drawn to Life 2, and wow, its long. Anyway, enjoy. :D
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In my mind, 5th Cell is a hardworking, diligent company that releases innovative but flawed games that are still good and well worth playing. Drawn to Life, their first full-fledged game, proved that. It had a few flaws (such as its repetition and uneven pacing) that didn't help the experience, but it still had its charming story and inspired soundtrack that helped make it a good game in the first place. I cannot speak for Lock's Quest, as I've never played it, and Scribblenauts, while again flawed, was extraordinarily ambitious and turned about to be, pretty much, the most innovative game ever made.
Now that Drawn to Life 2 is out, I can safely say that it completely destroys the original. 5th Cell is one of the few companies in the gaming industry that actually listens to the criticisms of their games and they clearly sought to make the sequel to Drawn to Life an improvement, at least. Fortunately, it's more than just an improvement; in general, it's a damn good game.
The story of Drawn to Life 2 goes something like this: Heather, a half light, half dark Raposa (a rodent-ish race) that was rescued in the first game is kidnapped by Wilfre, the main villain of the first game, who takes the color of the village along with her. With no other options, the Raposa follow Wilfre across three villages and one final giant village and eventually find him to discover the truth as to why he did what he did.
That all sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, judging from the incredible twist ending that you will never, EVER see coming, I have doubts of a sequel. The story is simple and frankly childish at first, but it evolves and grows on you each hour you play it, and it turns into a heartfelt and surprisingly emotional tale of betrayal and death.
Anyhow, let's get to the nitty gritty. DTL 2 basically functions the same as its predecessor, but with a couple major, MAJOR improvements. In DTL 1, your task in each level was to scout out for three missing Raposa that were captured by Wilfre. This was not only tedious but it made the levels go unbearably long because of all the searching around you had to do. This, in my opinion, should be done only for extras. Not for the main game.
However, this is not so in DTL 2. In fact, your only true goal is to beat each level. No strings attached. Well...not really. You have to collect color drops in order to restore the color in each village you visit, and you get a set amount of color drops when you beat each level. You will not get enough color to beat the game based on just the color you attain at the end of the level, though, so you'll have to collect the color drops like you would coins in the levels, which, thankfully, does not feel tedious and requires very little level searching.
The levels themselves are shorter too, which is also a plus considering how annoyingly long the levels were in the first game. There are about seven levels per village, and each level, without looking too hard, takes about ten minutes to finish. As you can probably tell, this makes the game pretty short. I finished it at around seven hours, but I spent a little extra time restoring color to villages.
However, the levels are still pretty fun, even if they still feel slightly repetitive. To ease this repetition, there are two extra forms a player can take: blob and spider. The blob can squeeze through narrow passageways and the spider can climb walls and shoot webs. Both make playing through the levels more engaging and interesting as you need them to progress in the game.
Speaking of things that are interesting, let's talk about the bosses: A pirate ghost, a gargantuan robot Raposa, a freakishly large spaceship in a jungle in space, and Wilfre himself. If that does not capture your attention, I honestly don't know what does. While each boss is either of easy or medium difficulty (like the game itself), they each have a twist. The pirate ghost is killed by using his henchman against him, the robot Raposa can only be killed by destroying his outer body, his two cores, and his heart, the spaceship is destroyed by bombs and is then destroyed again from its burners by gunfire, and Wilfre himself is a color-absorbing god on a thundercloud.
The graphics have been given a major artistic boost. Nothing technically impressive will jump out at you obnoxiously like a lot of games do nowadays, but the game's beautifully, detailed drawn worlds will win you over. In fact, there's even a fully animated opening that is both gorgeous and sets the right mood for the game. Not to mention, the in-level creations you can make also look great and are better than the original DTL.
The soundtrack in the first game was hard to beat, but this does it. Each track has its own 5th Cell flavor to it, and for good measure, 5th Cell remixed some of the tracks from the first game. It only does this a handful of times, though, and it doesn't make remixed/reused music the bulk of the audio experience like Explorers of the Sky does. Needless to say, the soundtrack is still just as kickass and inspired as the one from the first DTL was.
After beating the aforementioned seven-hour game, there isn't too much replay value beyond replaying the enjoyable levels, buying tracks, upgrades, and hero guides from the shop, and coloring the levels. However, I believe you can also trade hero templates on WiFi, although I never tried because no one else I know has a copy of this game besides me...
Anyways, Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter is an excellent game that stands on its own. It improves on Drawn to Life in all aspects and comes out to be 5th Cell's best game thus far. It's too bad that there might not be another Drawn to Life, as the series has enormous potential to be even better than this game is. Who knows? Maybe 5th Cell can somehow make a new story from this concept and move forward. Only time will tell.
The Good:
-Improved level design and pacing
-More variety
-Beautiful artwork and animation
-A moving and memorable story
-Awesome Soundtrack
-Great Bosses
-More WiFi and creation options
The Bad:
-Too short
-A bit repetitive
-The occasional small plot hole