I laugh like an idiot at the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon, and I bought most of the series on DVD to watch in the privacy of my room, away from fellow adults and people who might make fun of me for liking such a show. Similarly, I thought the original Drawn to Life was an extremely fun and innovative title that deserved more praise than it got, but my friends basically disagreed and called me a loser. Not to be put down from all that, I decided I'd try out Drawn to Life: SpongeBob SquarePants Edition, because I love SpongeBob and I love drawing nonsensical images.
This entry into the Drawn to Life series follows the storyline featured in the SpongeBob episode “Frankendoodle.” It's almost like a sequel to that story, in that another magical pencil falls off a boat down into the underwater town of Bikini Bottom. It falls near Patrick (not the sharpest knife in the drawer), who picks it up and tries to remember who he was not supposed to draw. Of course, while he's thinking, he's drawing, and thus a brand new Frankendoodle is born. It shuffles away, ready to wreak havoc on unsuspecting citizens of Bikini Bottom. SpongeBob suggests that he and Patrick create another doodle to combat this evil one. That's where you come in. Using the DS stylus and a set of drawing tools akin to Paint on your desktop, you create a character representing you, a friend, or pretty much anything you feel like making, which will then be animated into a platformer hero.
Upon starting the game, you'll be asked to create that character, which is quite the fun task. There is a predetermined area in which you will be able to draw. It's divided into segments—a head, arms, torso, legs, and feet. If you aren't that much of an artist, there are templates available to choose from that can help get you started. You're pretty much limited to the colors available and what you can dream up. Just because the template is humanoid, that doesn't mean you can't create something totally off the wall. I made an octupus person that looked pretty silly but not too out of place in the world of SpongeBob.
The game is fairly simple. It uses a combination of both the stylus and DS controls so you can maneuver your creation, or “DoodleBob,” as SpongeBob calls it, through various levels of Bikini Bottom. The game is mainly 2D with a bit of 3D in that some creatures are drawn that way instead of flat sprites. Chasing after Frankendoodle means you'll have to thwart its minions, that usually come in the form of small green snails, jellyfish, mean fellow citizens, and other various creatures. You can jump on them in a Mario kind of way, and when that's done you can rub the DS stylus over top of them like you were erasing with a pencil. This allows you to redraw them as an ally. From then on when you defeat enemies and erase them, they will reappear as what you chose to draw them as and will no longer cause you harm. Aside from redrawing enemies, you can draw your own trophy for the end of the level, the house that you reside in, and even the furniture inside. The selling point for this game is clearly the drawing, because kids will instantly eat up the fact that they are making the game their own, not to mention they're in the cartoon world of SpongeBob.
It's a very straightforward platformer that feels overall tighter and faster than the original Drawn to Life. You have much more creative control over what happens in the game. Collecting tokens along the way will help to upgrade your character, and you can choose from SpongeBob, Patrick, or Squidward to aid you in your quest. SpongeBob is summoned by drawing a square around your character, and he will act as a shield. Patrick can be used as a throwing star, and Squidward can stun enemies. Along the way you will run into goo that Frankendoodle has left behind, so you can take the stylus and erase that in order to collect more tokens. Overall, though, this is a very mundane platformer that clearly would be little more than a bad knockoff if it weren't for all the input you have on the look of the game. Being able to draw your own hero, save points, enemies, house, and even power-ups is the big draw here. If you took all of that away, you'd have a very mediocre SpongeBob platformer.
Graphics are okay, they're definitely SpongeBob inspired, but the scenes that move the story along are not done very well. They are a strange mix of horrible 3D, and some scenes are character portraits much like you'd have in an RPG. It seems quite lazy to include some moving scenes and some static scenes, but I suppose cutting corners was necessary in order to incorporate so much user-generated content. It's plenty colorful enough, but pixelation is sort of atrocious, and environments are bit uninspired. This is a DS title, so I expect more than that. Look at what Square Enix has done for Final Fantasy III and IV.
Dialogue is not voiced. Instead, you have short clips of audio of characters screeching, laughing, or emoting, though it doesn't quite sound like they are from the original voice actors. The music fits well enough, sounding like it was taken straight out of the show itself, which is a definite plus since the show's music was so mellow and relaxing that one could listen to it for a long period of time without getting annoyed. The sound quality is pretty crisp as well, and sounds great through headphones. It would have been nice, however, if some lines of dialogue had been provided because I know the voice actors aren't doing too much else that they couldn't have recorded something.
This isn't a hard game at all. It can be completed within a relatively short amount of time, which is a bit inexcusable for the fact that the level designs aren't too hard to navigate and there really is nothing difficult. You can breeze through the game in a weekend. The longest part of the game is actually the saving system. Upon my first opportunity to save my progress, I thought my DS had encountered a problem or something. I waited at least 5 minutes for the game to finish saving, and almost turned it off for a restart, but it just takes that long. I would assume that this is because of the massive amount of items you can customize. That's a price I'm willing to pay because it's defnitely tons of fun getting to create my own hero. Unfortunately, it may frustrate children who won't understand why it's taking so long, so they might end up with corrupted data a couple different times unless you explain to them why it's taking so long, and no, their DS isn't frozen.
Bottom Line:
For a licensed video game, this title takes the technology of Drawn to Life and runs with it. However, without the aid of the fancy character and item editing, this wouldn't be such a great game. I personally enjoyed the fact that my own hero was doing all the platforming instead of the actual act of platforming. It delighted me to no end that my own character was starring in a game, which I surmise will be the biggest pull for anyone who decides to purchase this game. Drawing your own elements of the game is easy and fun, and one of the better uses of the touch screen. If you're an artist you'll have a ball playing around with the paint editor. It's best to keep in mind, though, that for the suggested retail price, this game is very short and sweet. If you or your kids absolutely have to have it, I'd recommend waiting until a sale. Overall, this is not the greatest game I could recommend, but it's made tons better by the fact that you have so much control over what it looks like. One of the better cartoon/movie/anime tie-ins, by far.
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| 6.5 |
Posted: 2008-12-22 07:55:47 PST