Adventuring and solving puzzles have no doubt been two of the biggest aspects of any Legend of Zelda game, especially the 2D ones. But has Ludosity been able to recreate the quality of puzzles and thrill of adventure as there is in the classics we've all come to know and love?



As soon as the game starts you're introduced to the main gist of Ittle Dew's story. Ittle and her help character, Tippsie, crash land on a new island. Being the devoted adventurers they are, they immediately begin their quest to find treasure and explore the island. Besides this, not much actual in-depth story takes place besides at the end. There is occasional talking between character or too enemies, and while this is often quite humorous, it doesn't add to the story. This isn't to say it's no wanted, it's still a nice touch and adds to the lighthearted atmosphere of the game.



The gameplay is ripped almost directly out of the 2D Legend of Zelda games, which isn't a bad thing. There are a few minor changes though, mostly in the fact that Ludosity has narrowed down the essential items of Ittle's quest to 3 unique objects: the Flame Sword, Portal Wand, and Ice Wand, plus you could say there's a fourth one that you have from the start of the game; a stick. These items are fairly self explanatory, and they work in ways that you'd think they would. However, they still can work by themselves or together to create interesting and unique puzzles. Sometimes, sadly, the game seems to get too close to its inspiration and has puzzles incredibly similar to those you'd already have in a Zelda game, but luckily these puzzles do not show up too often, as Ludosity created many of the puzzles to be unique and interesting. The controls are also fairly simplistic, with all items being mapped to a specific button (A, B, X, or Y). You cannot remap these controls, by the way. You move with the D-Pad or left analogue stick and... that's about it as far as controls go. There's a helpful map on the GamePad that will show you where you've been, and this map can be switched for the game screen for off-screen play. For some reason, the sound doesn't switch over, so if you're interested in off-screen play with sound you'll have to keep the TV on. Perhaps this will be fixed in an update in the future, but it's only a minor problem.



The concept behind Ittle Dew is a bit different from Zelda games, and in a pleasant way. While in Zelda games, typically you're going from dungeon to dungeon to find items that'll be needed in that dungeon and later dungeons. In Ittle Dew, after going through the Tutorial Dungeon, you can go straight to the castle and start working your way through it. You will come upon a point in which you just can't do anything else, though, and by then you should have collected enough gold to go to Itan's Shop and buy one of his items for sale. He doesn't actually have the items, by the way, just an exact replica of them, but he can take you to the place where it's located (aka: a dungeon). In the dungeon you're sent to, you can only use that item and a stick to pass through it, with the dungeon less of a progressing part of the game as it is a training portion, showing you how to use the item you've just found. At the end of the dungeon, there's a boss fight, and you must use your knowledge of the item you've acquired to defeat your enemy. After beating the boss, you can easily get back to the castle (there is an overworld, but it's relatively tiny compared to Hyrule's) and continue working on getting through the castle until you come upon another stopping point in which you go back to Itan's Shop, and the process repeats itself.



One other large attraction to this game, besides this being Zelda-inspired, would be if you enjoy speed running games, this game was designed for you. While it took about 3 hours for me to beat the game the first time through, numerous shortcuts are present in the game and make it possible to beat the game many, many times faster than I did. This makes replayability present and enjoyable. Two other things that would add to the game's overall replay value are cards and pieces of scrap paper. Cards are collectable items that show information about a character or enemy in the game. They're scattered throughout the overworld and in dungeons/the castle, and there's 26 to collect, so it'll take a bit of time to find them all. Pieces of scrap paper are the equivalent of pieces of heart in the Legend of Zelda series; collect four and you'll have a new heart and thus can take some more damage than before. Regardless, for both collectables, you'll have to solve some sort of puzzle in order to get to them, so it's more interesting an endeavor than just looking around for chests.



As a few small things I'd like to add, I want to point out some things such as sound and graphic quality. The music in this game is, for the most part, decent. It's not amazing, but it's not annoying. It may get slightly monotonous after a while, which would be the only drawback, and there are certainly a few pieces in the game that are actually quite good. As for the graphics, they're sketched out and pleasing to the eye while doing what they need to. The only other thing I want to mention is that the game can be somewhat glitch at times, and I've had the game freeze on me once and, after opening up the game again, half of the game's sound had been deleted. However this is the only time I've run into that, and I'm not exactly sure how common it is, but be wary of problems such as this.



In answer to my earlier question, if this meets the level a Zelda fan would be looking for, put simply, yes. It's not huge, drawn out, or as epic a quest as such a game as Legend of Zelda, but it will certainly quench any Zelda or puzzle game fan's thirst for Zelda styled puzzles and gameplay for a while, and it also would definitely appeal to any speed runner. As far as Ittle Dew's concept works, it works very well and changes up things. I greatly enjoyed the creative solutions I had to find to solve the inventive puzzles Ludosity has created. For $10, Ittle Dew does what it sets out to do, and it does it well. It'll do you good to add it to your Wii U's virtual library.

Overall Score: 7.5/10

Review Copy Provided by: Ludosity