Ittle Dew – Review
Ittle Dew is an action adventure indie game which focusses on block puzzles similar to the Zelda games. Find out if it’s worth your time and money in this review!
The first thing you’ll notice about the game is that the art style is incredibly hearty. You can tell that the game is hand-drawn and it really adds to the overall feeling of the game.
Everything is alive and moving and the monsters are simply cute. Even killing them is cute since they explode and leave a colourful confetti cloud.
The music of Ittle Dew is also very fitting to the childish (and I mean childish in the most positive way) overall theme of the game. Don’t get me wrong, the game does look childish and most of the jokes are childish as well but the actual puzzles are mind-boggling hard at times.
You play as a girl (!) which is not sexualized in any way which is a very refreshing thing to see in the video game industry if you ask me. You are also accompanied by a flying fox which is an obvious allusion to the fairy Navi which you should know from the N64 Zelda games. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about you better go play them NOW)
The game knows that it’s borrowing a lot of stuff from the old Zelda games and some people say that it’s a simple Zelda clone, but that’s just not what it is. It’s full of tributes and allusions but it gives everything it’s own spin. For example when you pick up your first heart which you get by killing enemies (just like in Zelda) you get to see a conversation between you and your flying fox where they discuss why the fuck you would eat hearts that you found lying on the ground in the first place.
The story is quite shallow but that’s totally fine for me, you crash on an island and want to get off it. Don’t expect some crazy LOST-like story, that’s simply not what that game is. Heck, you don’t even have to wake up some mysterious sleeping wind fish.
The puzzles in Ittle Dew are hard but rewarding
As I’ve said before, don’t be fooled by the childish look of the game, the puzzles are hard. In fact they are so hard that even though I’m a Zelda veterinarian I had to look up a few solutions on YouTube to be actually able to clear 100% of the game.
The game also offers a unique twist to the whole puzzle solving – you can find three different items which help you on your quest to get off the island, but only two are actually required to complete the game. That alone is a phenomenal twist on the whole puzzle experience and offers a huge replay value. You get to decide how you want to solve the game. You can take the easy route and just get all items (which is strongly advised on your first playthrough) or simply decide what item combination you want to play with.
It’s short
It took me 4 hours to complete the game without finding everything and around 10 hours to find everything and completing the optional “Master Cave”.
Since I’m a completionist I also started to get all achievements on steam and speed run the game. You get an achievement for completing the game in under 15 minutes but believe me, that is no easy task. It took me 16 hours in the end to get and see everything in this game and I loved every minute of it.
So the question remains, should you buy it? If you like those puzzles and the old Zelda games by all means: YES GO BUY THE GAME! If you didn’t like them then chances are you won’t like Ittle Dew either and should skip it.
