
A Link to the (Swedish) Past
Like Zelda, the strangely-named Ittle Dew is a 2D adventure game with a heavy focus on puzzles and exploration. You play as the eponymous Ittle Dew, a "bumptious" adventurer (as the game manual puts it... now that's a great adjective!) stranded on a mystical island with her fairy-fox friend Tippsie, who as the name implies gives her tips along the way. Ittle wears a green shirt with blonde hair so you don't forget where the game gets its inspiration from, and Tippsie is basically a less-irritating, alcoholic fox version of Link's flying helper Navi. The only way to escape the island is for Ittle to convince the item shop owner, a mysterious pirate named Itan with a boat for a hat, to build her a raft. But of course, Itan won't just sell her the raft; she must retrieve "The Artifact" from "The Castle" before he'll agree to build one. So begins Ittle Dew's dungeon-crawling, puzzle-solving adventure. This postmodern self-aware style of game is all the rage these days and the concept risks becoming stale; luckily, the warm-hearted humour and optimistic outlook help Ittle Dew feel not like a cynical satire but more like a loving tribute.
Accompanying the beautiful item shop is aninstantly memorable song. It seems all Swedish video games are required to have atmospheric soundtracks, and Ittle Dew is no exception; the sweeping, swashbuckling music gives the game a melancholy, nostalgic feel that will stick with you long after you've put down the controller.
There are no touch screen controls in Ittle Dew, but that seems unimportant. The main screen shows gameplay and the secondary screen shows you the level map, as well as how many of the treasure chests you've collected in the current level; this is helpful for making sure you don't miss any of the extras. This setup has the best of both worlds: it shows different, useful information on both screens while at the same time allowing for easy off-TV play. The problem, though, is that for some reason there's no audio on the GamePad; presumably this will get patched in the future, but it's a bummer for now, as you'll have to either stick to your TV or play on the GamePad in silence.
It's a shame all these issues persist, because beneath the technical problems Ittle Dew is a true gem. The auto-saving mechanic and the Tippsie hint system are indicative of its welcoming design philosophy; not only does Ittle have unlimited lives, but when she dies (in an adorable child-falling-over animation) she respawns in the same room, so there's no trekking through the same dungeon over and over. Not only that, but the game's pause menu includes a "Retry Room" option, so if you're stuck on a puzzle or cornered by enemies, you can reset the entire room with no penalty.
Every aspect of this action-puzzle gameplay is impeccable, except for one thing: the combat. Ittle must get incredibly close to enemies before they're within range of her melee attacks, so it's very tough to avoid taking damage. Enemies patrol around rooms in a semi-random manner that makes it interesting since they never walk in the exact same pattern twice, but it also means you never know when they'll bump right into you and inflict damage. The penalty for death isn't harsh, but this is still a major annoyance in some sequences of the game where you'll wish the developers abandoned combat entirely in favour of pure, unadulterated puzzle solving.
In a gaming industry where strong, non-sexualised female protagonists are hard to come by, Ittle Dew is a breath of fresh air – not only is Ittle herself a lady, but almost all the enemies you'll face in the game are female. None of the enemies are very sinister; many of them are just girls wearing animal-suit pyjamas in the vein of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are, nonchalantly trudging around the levels because it's their job. Ittle even finds the bad guys' bedroom at one point in the castle, where she discovers they're just regular people.| 欢迎光临 TGFC Lifestyle (http://tgfcer.com/) | Powered by Discuz! 6.0.0 |