It’s been awhile since I’ve played a platformer, and Drawn to Life: Two Realms has definitely filled the void. It’s a creative twist following where its predecessor left off 10 years ago and offers some new gameplay mechanics that were not seen in the previous entry. With a simple story, straight-forward mechanics and beautiful visuals, Drawn to Life: Two Realms by developer Digital Continue and publisher 505 Games is a puzzle platformer well worth the wait.
Story
Drawn to Life: Two Realms continues the story from its previous title. The land of Raposa, as well as the Human world, are both in danger. With the previous Mayor no longer with us, Mari has stepped up to become the new village leader. In order to help fight off the impending crisis she has summoned you, the Hero, to once again save her world. This time, however, the Hero is given the Book of Imagination, which allows them to dive directly into the minds of NPCs in order to save them from evil. This time, you’ll spend much of your time in the Real World, helping Mike rid his friends and neighbors of a fiendish influence that has invaded their emotions.
Gameplay & Mechanics
Drawn to Life: Two Realms takes on an isometric view while traversing the overworld in search of missions. Much of the time spent traveling is made easy with a quest marker to all the main missions, however, there are a healthy number of side quests to partake in as well. Before you begin your story, however, you are given the task of creating the Hero: A customizable character in which you can freely draw and design with a multitude of different pens, pins, and parcels to feed your creativity. Not much of an artist (I’m definitely trash at drawing)? No worries. Digital Continue has made a creation tool that has a collection of premade assets, which you can select and equipped to have an easier time making your way around the creator. You can mix, match, and save custom designs as well as edit on the fly at any time during overworld travel.
Where Drawn to Life: Two Realms struggles is within its core mechanics. When delving into the minds of NPCs, you enter timed platforming segments with one of 3 objectives: Defeat all the enemies, getting to the End Gate, or escorting an NPC to a specific area. As all platformers, you will spend most of your time jumping and bouncing across the backs of enemies. While it sounds simple, the difficulty spikes in the level designs are wild and random. Some are as easy as jumping across the backs of a few enemies while others make you feel like you need to almost exploit the game in order to succeed. This can be accomplished by placing Toys, enemies which you can unlock and collect, then place them on the board before starting a level. While there are a diverse amount of Toys to collect, some are handier than the other. The rocket guys, for example, are almost a requirement for most stages as they are the easiest to exploit.
Aesthetics & Sound
Pixel art is beautiful, and Digital Continue has done a wonderful job with the artwork. Clearly, their artistry is far superior to that of my own. Both overworlds, the Raposa & Human Worlds, are absolutely gorgeous to look at. It’s also adorable that the Hero is a 2D character in the 3D real world (and it strikes me as odd that nobody really seems to care). The music is enjoyable and fits the cartoony world. It blends in, so you barely notice it. No complaints in this department.
Summary
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Drawn to Life: Two Realms. It was a cute story and a fun game. I wish some of the levels were more well-designed and, with most of them being multiple stages, if you ever decided to leave before finishing them all, you would have to redo them from the beginning. The artwork is masterful and charming, making the game seemingly inviting. Don’t let the childish appearance fool you: this game can get unnecessarily hard at times. Be brave, Hero. Be brave.
6.5 / 10
Check Out the Drawn to Life: Two Realms Video:
For more information, please visit: https://505games.com/games/drawn-to-life-two-realms/
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Steam Review
As the (self-proclaimed) King of Casuals, I'm always seeking out new titles to play and experience across all platforms. Eventually, I have ambitions to take the many different styles of this medium to create titles that will wow the masses in fresh, innovative ways.
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