Got this game for my wife for valentines day. The main reason this game is any kind of good is because of the drawing. But before that.

At the end of the day this game is a side scrolling platformer. The levels are decently long. All you do is run back and forth trying to collect coins, save townsfolk, and pick up other collectable stuff. The levels are pretty basic and overall, not terribly fun. Baddies respawn if you get too far away, and there's no map, so if you get lost theres not too much of a way to tell where you've already been. The collectable stuff doesnt even directly benifit you. You pick up powerups, and they become available in the store, for you to buy with the coins you get from all over the place. Not sure what thats about. That, and when you unlock a new skill, they dont tell you how to do it or what its for. I unlocked a backflip, figured out how to do it, and have no idea why i would ever try to pull it off.

Overall the plot is that theres a village of weird animal things thats getting overrun by darkness, so you have to save them by beating the previously mentioned side scrolling levels. It reminds me a lot of Act Raiser actually. At the end of a level you need to talk to a bunch of people and so on until they eventually tell you to go do the next level. So basically the flow of the game is do a level, rescue animal things from the level, animal things get integrated to the town, and you repeat.

The only thing that saves this game from total mediocrity is the drawing aspect. Your main character is anything you can imagine fitting into an anthropomorphic frame. You draw it. For example, i made a flying saucer out of the torso and head. All the other limbs are disembodied flying saucers, so he looks like a fleet of tiny aliens. You also get to design what your weapon looks like, what various platforms in levels look like, as well as some other things in town. Being able to customize the game that way is pretty fun, enough so i may actually try to finish the game. Otherwise i'd probably be tempted to shelf it.

The main thing i would like to see to this game is being able to do more with the town. I mean, you bring people back and uncover their houses from darkness...and it doesnt really change anything. you cant go inside, you cant really do anything with them, so whats the point? At least in Act Raiser you could make your townspeople do stuff. In this game they tend to boss you around ALL the time. Besides making stuff look like whatever you want theres really no freedom in the game.

Anyway, in the end i'd give the game a 3.5 out of 5. And it could have been a whole lot better with some more town elements.