The Smurfs - Dreams Review (Switch)

We have a confession to make: we were almost certain we knew how this review was going to go before we even started playing The Smurfs - Dreams.

After all, on paper it didn’t appear that anything special was on the cards. Publisher Microids is generally known for releasing solid enough games, but French developer Ocellus is – with the greatest of respect to it – not quite an industry powerhouse, with a few mobile spin-offs based on Talking Tom and the well-regarded Marsupilami: Hoobadventure to its name.

Add to that the fact that we were receiving PR emails on a near-weekly basis that constantly described the game as having “Super Mario vibes” and we hope you can appreciate that we were ready to dismiss this one as another average tie-in from the second it started downloading.

Then we played it and, dear reader, we’re not too proud to admit that we quickly realised we had done this game a great disservice. Don’t get us wrong, that PR nonsense was exactly that — because it’s clearly not in the same league as a Mario platformer – but it clearly tries its best to get itself into the conversation, and the result is a surprisingly charming, competent adventure.

The story goes that permanently nasty sod Gargamel has hatched a new plan to kidnap the Smurfs. He decides to place a curse on the Smurf Village’s sasparilla bushes, knowing the Smurfs use their berries to make a special meal. When they eat it, they all fall into a deep slumber: all of them, that is, except for Papa Smurf and your character (or characters, if you play in two-player co-op).

After realising what’s happened, Papa Smurf sends you on a mission. Using a magical pillow, you have to enter the dreams of each of the slumbering Smurfs and defeat the bosses within to break Gargamel’s curse and wake them up again.

Each Smurf’s dream serves a separate world in the game, with different enemies, obstacles and power-ups to be found. The dream setting also allows for some freedom with the art design, with a variety of wonderfully imagined environments. Developer Ocellus specialises in art – in recent years it’s been hired to help with art assets on live titles like Fortnite and Clash of Clans – and here it takes full advantage of its strengths to create something beautiful.

This is no better demonstrated than the transitions between areas in each stage. Complete a section and a giant golden rail will appear, allowing your Smurf to grind it over an enormous chasm – swooping over vast worlds of environmental detail miles beneath you – in order to reach the next part of the level. It’s a completely unnecessary transition (and is probably done to help with loading) but every time it happens it’s a treat to watch.

It’s not just the eyes getting the special treatment here, the ears are in for a great time too. The Smurfs - Dreams has one of the most beautiful soundtracks we’ve heard in a while, so kudos to French composer Valentin Lafort for pulling it off. There are times when it gets suitably epic during boss fights and the like, and in those situations it’s relatively forgettable, but in quieter moments the music gets very ethereal and… well, dream-like, and it’s so lovely that we’re keeping everything crossed it ends up on Spotify so we can drag all those tracks onto our chillout playlist.

Incidentally, we also want to give a quick mention to one other piece of sound design that really made us smile. At times you have to pull off a series of jumps in quick succession – such as jumping on a series of lily pads without missing, or else they’ll all disappear. As you do this, you can hear a group of Smurfs going “Ohhhhhhh”, which builds louder and tenser as you get closer to the end, followed by a big “Hoorayyyyy!” when you pull it off. It’s wonderful.

Gameplay is where it matters most, of course, and in that respect Dreams puts in a solid shift. Like we say, it’s definitely not up there with the Super Mario series no matter how much a PR wants us to believe it is, but you really can see where Ocellus has taken inspiration, most notably from Super Mario 3D World with its higher viewpoint and its somewhat more grid-like stage layouts.

Your Smurf is a little on the slippery side to control, but they’re also armed with more mid-air moves than most platforming protagonists. As well as a standard jump with the 'B' button you can also pull off a Yoshi-style flutter jump by holding 'B' again. There’s also an unusual move in which holding down the 'Y' button in mid-air freezes your Smurf in a bubble. For the most part, this is designed to keep them in place so you can wait for disappearing platforms to reappear, but experts can combine the bubble with the 'B' button to pull off a Mario 64-style dive move to reach otherwise inaccessible areas.

It’s the creativity on display in the game’s stages that suggests Nintendo’s influence most, however. Many tie-ins, especially those that lean towards younger audiences, are happy to slap together a bunch of generic worlds – grass, ice, fire, water, the usual rubbish – then fire out the results and count the money. Dreams, however, makes an effort to ensure the player is always presented with new gimmicks, obstacles or gameplay mechanics.

Whether it’s the tools introduced in each world – like the water gun that fires at enemies and switches from a distance, or the hammer which helps to defeat spiked enemies and destroy parts of the scenery – or the various other little ideas thrown in there for a brief moment of diversion, you're always kept on your toes and rarely feel like you're slipping into a boring, repetitive routine.

One smaller stage, for example, suddenly introduces the concept of a football and a goal, and tasks you with kicking the ball into the goal to move onto the next section. At first it’s easy enough, but each section adds more enemies, who chase after you and can also move the ball if they bump into it, meaning you have to create a sort of conga line behind you while also running into the ball at just the right angle to hit accurate shots.

Then it introduces charging enemies, and you realise you might just be able to position yourself in a way that the enemy will charge right into the ball and score it for you. Then, when all that’s done, you find a bonus area where you’re on a glass floor and underneath you is the ball, the goal, and a single enemy, and you realise you have to use their chasing AI to guide them into the ball and unwittingly score. And this is all one part of a smaller two-part stage, after which the football idea is promptly dismissed in the way the best Mario games steadfastly refuse to build a game around a single mechanic.

As wonderfully accomplished as it all is, The Smurfs: Dreams is rather on the short side. With just four main multi-stage worlds and a bunch of individual, smaller stages, we were able to complete it over the course of a couple of nights. Naturally, younger children will take longer than that to beat the game and collect all the hidden secrets, but it should also be noted that there are some tricky sections that won’t trouble platforming experts too much, but might be too much for kids, meaning if you’re a parent you might need to be prepared to step up at times.

Its performance in handheld mode is also a little disappointing. When docked it runs at 30 frames per second, which is to be expected for a multi-format game that looks this detailed. When played in handheld mode it retains this 30fps frame rate, but the picture quality takes a bit of a hit to compensate, resulting in a noticeably blurrier image.

These are the main issues with what’s otherwise a surprisingly well-made platformer. We really didn’t expect to be singing its praises like this, so it’s a testament to Ocellus that it was able to make us eat humble pie (albeit one that thankfully hasn’t been cursed by Gargamel) and concede that our initial prejudices were wrong. It may be one of those dreams where you wake up a little earlier from it than you’d like, but it’s a wonderful trip while it lasts.