Dewy’s Adventure Review

A year ago, when the Wii launched to incredible success, a few third parties were at the front of the action. Ubisoft had a massive presence, THQ, Activision had Call of Duty 3. Where were the Japanese publishers for this Japanese system? Clearly the Wii, with it’s innovative controller, could be used in imaginative ways by developers. Konami’s only release on Wii was a much talked about game called Elebits that never fully delivered. Like Konami’s last major Wii release, Dewy’s Adventure fails to deliver.

The idea behind Dewy is simple enough, and if it were not so damn simple, it might be fun to play. Basically you use the Wiimote to control Dewy, who is a water droplet, turning left and right to turn and up to jump. You can perform special abilities using gestures with the Wiimote to create wind storms or earthquakes. Furthermore, Dewy can transform between being a water droplet and both water vapor with a lightning strike attack and ice.

The same thing that you are impressed with in Dewy’s Adventure is the most frustrating part of the game. The Wiimote can be an extremely sensitive piece of hardware. It will register every little movement, inadvertent or otherwise. This can lead to frustrating moments missing items, falling off the level, etc. and ultimately slows the pace of the game a good deal. Essentially all this game becomes is a collect-a-thon with the objective of reaching the goal.

As far as replay value goes, the game’s length is not particularly long, but it can be replayed by individual levels. Aside from the story mode, there is also a robust level editor and mission challenges. The Enemy Challenge has you defeat all enemies in a stage. The Star Challenge has you collect all stars in a stage. Time Attack has you collect stars in a stage as fast as you can. In other words, not much to keep you coming back.

I had a lot of hope for Dewy’s Adventure. The concept is good enough, it just was not executed very well. Once again Konami has come up with an intriguing idea like they did with Elebits and fail to flesh it out or make it fun. I can not recommend Dewy’s Adventure to anyone except for young gamers due to its overly easy difficulty.