It's important to note that the puzzle design is mostly really splendid. In the end, it's inescapably about block-pushing puzzles, and so the constant highs and lows they offer are ubiquitous. But it's all pretty incidental, something to get in your way as you move from puzzle to puzzle. Bosses are more complex, but not a great deal - they're more about embracing the specialities of the tools that area is focusing on. The combat is mostly simplistic, albeit with some enemies requiring slightly more tricksy flapping about. That's probably true of any Sokoban variant, but it gets more weird when it's in the centre of an RPG. And then I solve it and I feel like a genius, and it's the greatest game of the modern age. When I'm stuck on something, I get cross with the game, and feel stupid because I know there's a solution in front of me, but I haven't outsmarted it yet. I'm suspicious that if the game started calling me "Mr Fatty Stupid Face" I'd awkwardly laugh and say, "Sure, that has made me cry a bit, but I suppose it's probably my fault." This game is too cruel-cute to let me usefully object to it, and I've lost all my critical faculties as a result.
So is it brilliant that I had to spend a frustrating half hour learning that, or bad design? I've no idea. There's no hint anywhere that this is the case, and it's counter-intuitive to try it.
Like, you can teleport yourself using the portal wand. Still a bit frustrated by its lack of direction, despite its propensity of directions.Ī big part of this is either due to being splendidly open to player discovery, or woefully lacking in useful information. And I'm stuck on a puzzle I need to complete, and now I hate it.Īnd then I figure out what I wasn't figuring out, and suddenly I love the game again. This gets worse when you buy something from the store, and are catapulted (literally) into a different area of the game, from which there's no escape until you solve its puzzles. And it's often tricky to remember where you are and why you're there. The thing is, on a couple of occasions it starts to lose its way as you start to lose yours. Although that's countered by the first time you pick up a heart dropped by a slain enemy, and Tippsie points out that EATING A HEART IS REVOLTING. Your fox companion's utter indifference to everything is peculiarly entertaining, especially when you catching him swigging health potions that you don't have access to. Or the Titan de Graphiques - large, winged blocks of stone that are FREAKING OUT because they are afraid of heights and can't stop flying. Like the furious-faced girls wearing poorly-made frog costumes. The enemies, who are whacked with sticks and swords, are all brilliantly animated and characterised. Apart from when I'm not.Įvery part of its delivery is winning me over. That's true of every example of the genre, and it's true of Ittle Dew too. Solving them is so much effort, that even if you immediately happen upon the solution you still have to spend ages rushing about pushing things all over, and then inevitably accidentally push something into a corner and have to restart the room. Because I really rather hate block-pushing puzzles. So it's an RPG, with block-pushing puzzles taking a rather large role. Exploration makes you aware that this is a fair bit Zelda, a smidgeon Metroid, and a surprisingly big chunk of Sokoban.
Arriving at an island that looks like it should be packed with the stuff, accompanied by an uninterested fox, Tippsie, you start seeking the damned stuff out as fast as you can. You're the titchy titular Ittle Dew, a young girl hellbent on having some adventure. You're limited by gained equipment, but you can wander surprisingly far in various directions from the start. I was also taken immediately by the enjoyable notion of freedom. And it's a Metroidvania sort of thing, and I am genetically programmed to like those. It manages to capture that sweet spot between the nice idea of an irreverent web comic and what irreverent web comics are actually like - so never tipping over into smug hatefulness, while being studiously aloof. My immediate reaction to Ittle Dew was to want to cuddle it. But then I loved it at various points during playing it. I like Ittle Dew a lot more now I've finished it than I did at various points during playing it.
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