Ittle dew is a very cute looking game, it has some clear and somewhat obvious influences from the Zelda series, but above all, Ittle dew, is a title that's not afraid of making fun of itself, providing the player with some truly funny moments.
The team of creative minds from developer Ludosity that worked on Ittle Dew certainly captured the spirit and feeling of true adventure that the original Zelda games had. The question is, are all this similarities with the Nintendo title positive or negative on the long run?
You start off the game crashing your "boat", turning up in some mysterious island and quickly getting ready for another adventure, your name is Ittle and the little fellow that accompanies you is called Tippsie, through the short campaign of Ittle Dew you will heard this cynical fox companion poke fun at the game, the Zelda series and gaming in general, the lines spoken by this Navi (Link's companion) substitute are generally very well written and extremely funny, for more casual gamers some of the jokes might miss the target as they are too "geeky", but for the ones that get it, the scenes where Tippsie speaks are some of the most entertaining moments present in the whole game.
While on paper the gameplay present on this title from developer Ludosity is very similar to the early games of the Legend of Zelda series, when you actually start playing, you will realize that it walks away from the mixed combat and puzzles formula and replaces it almost entirely with just puzzles. While there is some combat in Ittle Dew, it never really feels very good or even essential to complete the game, most enemies can just be dodged (except the ones that need to be killed to open some door).
This formula change should be something that encourages players to get Ittle Dew, as most puzzles are extremely well done and can be quite challenging on the last stretch of the game, granting that feeling of accomplishment when you actually beat that tough but logical puzzle.
Unfortunately in terms of loot the number of options are very limited, you start the game with a stick, and through the 3 to 5 hour campaign, you can acquire in the island vendor another three items, a flaming sword, a magic wand that can teleport you and finally a ice wand that allows you to freeze stuff, quite critical in the solving of some mind bending situations. Besides the limited amount of items and gadgets that you can play with, the process of getting them is predetermined, meaning that you will only get the gold to buy them in certain points in the game, other ways to bypass this like killing enemies or scavenging the wild for more gold would have been great, unfortunately it is not an option, as enemies only drop hearts (healing) and other chests you find while exploring are usually filled with collectibles.
The only time where combat is important and feels challenging is when a boss appears and even then some puzzle solving might be required, still, most of the boss fights are well done, adding some variety to the gameplay.
Visually Ittle Dew is very pretty, the character models are extremely cute and well designed, fitting well in the "Zelda parody" mood, the environments are bright and colorful in the (somewhat small) over-world, while the dungeons are varied and detailed so that you can easily distinguish one room from another without having to constantly look at the map.
The sound is nothing to write home about, a bit more could have been done there, still, there are some funny sound effects, once again with some references to past games.
All in all Ittle Dew is a fun little game, providing a decent amount of mind bending challenges to solve (especially to completionists) while keeping it fun and visually appealing.
The biggest drawback one could find is definitely the lack of loot and the stiff combat, it simply doesn't feel very rewarding as enemies don't drop anything interesting.
Year of Release: 2013
Platform(s): PC, Mac, Ouya, Wii U, Ipad, Android tablets
Developer(s): Ludosity
NRLB would like to thank Ludosity for providing a review copy
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