While never given the attention of more established cartoons turned video games, The Smurfs have been ever present since the early days of the home micros. The Smurfs – Dreams is actually the 25th video game based on the characters, a number that few others can rival. That being said, there hasn’t always been the quality to match that quantity and the earlier games in particular are far from fondly remembered. This legacy has unfortunately meant that many gamers have missed out on the more recent Smurfs games by Microids, games that have been low key bangers. Mission Vileaf and Prisoner of the Green Stone both took influences from Nintendo greats like Mario Sunshine and Luigi’s Mansion to offer really enjoyable platform adventures with gadgets to add to the standard jumping mechanics, and The Smurfs – Dreams looks to continue that revival by riffing on another well established style.
In many ways The Smurfs – Dreams feels like it’s taking a back to basics approach. The two stages I got to play in the preview build didn’t feature the Smurfizer at all and instead relied on well designed and more traditional 3D platforming, which has most notably featured in Super Mario 3D World and Sackboy: A Big Adventure over the past decade. The bright and colourful settings and solid music make for a very fitting aesthetic given the cartoon origins of the franchise and the visual design ensures that there is no ambiguity between foreground and background.
In news that will surprise nobody, the story revolves around a nefarious plot by the sinister Gargamel – the long time nemesis of the Smurfs. He has used a sleeping curse to incapacitate almost all of the little blue folk and you must venture through your friends’ dreams in order to wake them up before they are captured. This backstory (none of which is explained in the preview build) is nothing especially new but does allow for some imaginative and varied worlds. The two I got to play began to show the possible range with the second in particular being a stand out.
The first level was presumably the introductory one and therefore was relatively simple and mostly focused on establishing the basic controls. There are plenty of hidden items and some nifty detours from the main path but this was all rather standard fare and felt like the perfect introduction and jumping on point for younger players. The second level took things up a notch though; using a more 2.5D perspective as opposed to isometric, and bringing in some neat mirror puzzles to keep you on your toes, with invisible items shown within
The gameplay trailer shows plenty more of how this game will evolve and grow in challenge and creativity, delving into darker dream worlds with more abstracted platforming, more enemy attacks to dodge, more moving platforms and hazards to time your jumps to get past. All of this will be playable in two-player co-op, which is a bit of a come down from the four-player that’s felt standard for this style of platformer for a while, but great to have nonetheless.
All in all I spent about 45 minutes playing through the two worlds. With just these two levels and none of the story or cutscenes to surround and give them context, it’s unclear as to whether the more established Smurfs will play a role – here you play as a fairly generic Smurf avatar. While it feels a little toned down in comparison to the two previous Smurfs games, there is plenty here to enjoy for fans of traditional platformers. If the main game continues in this vein then it could easily be a sleeper hit.
