Drawn to Life on the DS can best be summed up with one word: unique. THQ has crafted a wonderfully original game. However, past Drawn to Life’s original elements is a very ‘by the books’ platforming adventure, and due to its lack of depth it will have trouble keeping you entertained.

Players take the role of a deity-like character named ‘The Creator’. A tale is told of the Book of Life, which dictates the way the Raposa, the creatures living in your world, live their lives. One day a Raposa named Wilfre decided to try and take the Book of Life for himself so he could create his own creatures. However, the creatures all came out as monsters. Wilfre was so enraged that he ripped out the pages of the book of life, angering The Creator and plunging the world into despair. That’s where you come in. Your mission is to restore the pages of the Book of Life and bring happiness back to the Raposa village.

One of the first things The Creator (you) will create is a hero to save the world. Introduced here is the game’s most interesting element: the ability to draw your own characters, items, and objects, and have them put into the game world to interact with. It’s an awesome system that gives you a pile of colors and a few different types of brushes to work with. If you’re abysmal at drawing, the game provides you with various templates that you can color in, as well as stamps to add some artistic flair. I found it fun to see my own horriffic creations trudging across the landscape, but others might prefer to have something that more matches the game. It’s really cool to see your character come to life for the first time. They animate perfectly. However, as cool as this element is, the only time it allows for true creativity is at the very beginning when you design your hero. More on that later.

The game is divided into two parts: the village overworld, and the platforming stages. The overworld is very simple. Players will run around, finding people, drawing in pages of the Book of Life, and playing the occasional mini game. Eventually you’ll be asked to head out to the platforming stages, which is where most of the playing time is spent. Unfortunately, this is where the game begins to falter. It’s not that it does anything very bad… it’s quite well designed and plays out smoothly. The fact is, the levels lack any depth. You run from left to right, collecting coins and jumping on enemies. Each level gives you three tasks to accomplish: scrub off all the shadow goo on houses (Mario Sunshine, anyone?), save three Raposas, and collect four scraps of the Book of Life. There are also three hidden items in each level, which give you the option to buy new drawing templates, stamps, music tracks, or abilities at the item store back at the village. The problem is, none of these are ever hidden or very difficult to collect. Experienced players will breeze through every stage with 100% completion easily. Enemies pose little threat, especially with your ranged weapons and the multitude of healing items spread across each stage. Every so often your character will come across a drawing palette. Tapping it will tell you to draw something, like an ice cube to float across water, or a cloud to use as a platform. This is where the game limits your creativity. Sometimes you’ll be able to draw whatever you want, but other times the game will only allow you to color in something which already exists. For example, instead of being able to completely design your own submarine, the game will have a pre-drawn template that you can only color in. The vehicles like the submarine add some variety to the generic platforming, but their use is very limited and usually very short. Even the boss design is uninspired. Instead of utilizing the title’s drawing elements, it’s the same old “jump on the dragon’s head X amount of times”. There are some minor design issues as well. I noticed some collision detection issues with some of the smaller enemies. The screen also scrolls too slowly, so I was blindly running into enemies at times.

Despite this, Drawn to Life maintains a high level of production values. The artwork is wonderful, and everything animates beautifully. When it comes to 2D games on the DS, this is near the top of the pile. There’s also some surprisingly memorable music tracks, along with some cute voice over work for the Raposas. It’s certainly not a lengthy title. With the ease of the single player adventure, most players will see everything the game has to offer the first time through, which should last about 10-12 hours. It’s a shame that there’s no multiplayer either, as some of the mini games would have been a blast if it was included.

The simple fact of the matter is, Drawn to Life is a kids game. It has a wonderfully unique gameplay element that never gets fully utilized in order to keep it simple for younger gamers. Without the ability to create your own characters and items, the game would just be another extremely generic platformer. Kids will love it, so if you’re looking at buying it for a younger gamer, go for it. But unless you can be endlessly entertained by watching your awful drawings run around amidst beautiful 2D artwork, there isn’t much to see here.

SCORE: 7.4/10