Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?
Nintendo 3DS, DS -- 30$
Developer: Wayforward
Publisher: D3Publisher
The game opens with an adorable scene that sets the stage perfectly: a cosmic owl blasts Finn to smithereens, whereupon he wakes up and tries his best to articulate what happened to his shape-shifting dog, Jake. Jake responds by telling him about all the tea cups in the basement he should smash, you know, for therapeutic purposes. From this, you can immediately tell that WayForward has nailed the transition from cartoon to videogame. Never once, in your entire time in the land of Ooo, will you feel as if you're playing a licensed game. No, you are in Ooo, and you are playing a classic episode of Adventure Time, complete with multiple cameos from your favorite characters, and wonderfully creative boss fights which show a loving respect to the style of each character portrayed.
The Adventure Time cartoon is a new modern cartoon classic. It seamlessly blends old style, eleven minute shorts with new, fast, modern comedy. The art style is deceptively simple, but that's what people want these days. Kids, especially. Gone are the times when they were placated by the stiff animation and fuzzy backdrops of older toons, and those styles are instead replaced with crisp, clean visuals that instantly communicate the ideas at play. This is a brilliant decision on the part of the cartoon makers, and WayForward has implemented this exact design choice into the game. The backdrops are clear, detailed, and sharp. This lends to a wonderful use of the 3D, as when it's turned on, the image pops and immediately becomes a picture book world, where the player is able to easily distinguish between the backdrops and the foreground where Finn does his adventuring. Not only is the style of the environments well designed, but they never cease to amaze you with their creativity throughout the whole adventure. From the grasslands, to Princess Bubblegum's candy kingdom, to the Ice King's lair, all of these places pack a massive visual punch, and the player will be delighted to journey through them and see what new kinds of monsters and dungeons await him.
The soundtrack never misses a beat either. Jake Kaufman is one of the greatest in the biz at the moment (his soundtrack for Double Dragon Neon is easily my favorite video game soundtrack of all time) and his personal flair can be found in every track. The rock-ish fighting theme grew a little old by the end of my time with the game (and why does it play during the otherwise peaceful cloud world segments?) but besides that, every track had me tapping my foot and enjoying the zones more than I would have otherwise.
Unfortunately, if you've noticed, up until now I've barely mentioned the gameplay. That's because there hardly is any. The world map puts you in an isometric view where you're able to direct Finn and Jake to any accessible zone, the next big area being locked off until you attain a new shape-shifting ability for Jake. This, however, is nothing more than a dialogue exchange and then bam, you can now press A at that broken bridge to cross it, or bam, you can now press A at that dock to swim to the next area. That by itself isn't too shabby. Sure, I'm a little disappointed they didn't make the world map a more lively place with which to interact, but if the dungeons themselves are fun, then who cares, right?
They aren't.
Each area has the player mindlessly walk from left to right, mashing the Y button to kill things in his way. There is no strategy required whatsoever. The inventory screen will quickly be filled (literally filled, most of the time spent in the player's inventory throughout the game is just throwing random crap out so Finn can make room for the better healing items) with items that either restore health, or give Finn a short term buff that do a fair few different things, but none of them add to the gameplay design. The best thing that can be said about them is that they are wonderfully faithful references to things we've seen in the Adventure Time cartoon. Use the Tiger's Claw, the player will hit a little harder. Use the Shuriken, when the player attacks he'll throw a few ninja stars out in a semi-circle spreading out from Finn's attack. I know that this was a game intended for children, but if it weren't for pitfall deaths that take you back to beginning of an area, there would be zero challenge to the levels.
The design of the gameplay steps it up only in the last couple of zones, when the player will finally have enough token dungeon solving abilites that he'll have to think just a wee bit to remember how to use them correctly in order to unlock the right doors so you can, again, just proceed to the next stale hallway where you will mash Y against stuff. Oh, you might mash X instead. I did. It's more fun to watch Jake hit things than Finn, and his attack has a slightly longer reach.
You will find level up upgrades in a few hard to reach chests, and Jake evolves a few combat abilities, but again, I cannot over-emphasize enough how very little this changes anything about what the player does. He might have fun noticing the damage numbers go from 4 to 6, or using the special attacks, but they're never, ever required, and they're almost always much less useful than just using Finn's basic attacks. The map and inventory system are adequate at best. There's no pausing to use items, but the selection window is so small that one can't easily use his thumbs to quickly select them. Thus, the player has to try and get the stylus out in the middle of a fight to pick the right item, double tap it to make it work, and either put the stylus back or set it down to move your thumb back into fighting position. All of that work to use the items which add the only real variations to combat, and after one instance of using them, the player will have lost twice the health he would have had he just mashed the Y button. I'm sorry, but that's iffy game design, and it isn't very fun to be punished for trying to use the things the game developers are trying to get you to use.
The final flaw to this game is its length. I, personally, don't mind it. WayForward is known for making lights that burn twice as bright for half as long, and I can appreciate that type of game design. It shows in HIK!WYSOG? in every single frame. The love they poured into the art style and animations is breathtaking. It must be said, though, that even with a full NG+ completion my time with the game barely exceeded six hours. I could understand many people being disappointed by paying thirty dollars for this game, but, again, I wasn't bothered. I prefer the rock-solid technical design of this game to a possibly shoddier, padded out experience.
But all of that being said, WayForward knocked the aesthetic design of the game out of the park and into whatever realm that Cosmic Owl comes from. The dialogue is hilarious, the characters will sometimes shout their classic catchphrases ("OH! MY! GLOB!"), and even though there isn't full voice-acting, I preferred it that way. It feels more like a fantasy adventure when you've got to read the voices in your head. You couldn't ask for a more faithfully created licensed product. Any fan of Adventure Time is going to have an absolute blast playing through HIK!WYSOG? For newcomers to the series, it can be a great starting point to get into the humor and art style of the show.
For those looking to play a great Zelda II clone, well...
I'd say go ahead and just play Zelda II again.
+
6.5/10
or
*** (three stars)
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