The Smurfs – Dreams Review – Surprisingly Smurftastic

At a young age, I got to play The Smurfs’ first foray into 3D games in the form of the PlayStation 1’s The Smurfs from 1999, which I remember semi-fondly. It was a mixed experience that worked best during the few times you got to watch the little guys interact, leveraging the property’s charm. Over twenty years later, having retained my fascination with licensed games with a dose of newfound cynicism, I jumped on the chance to check out The Smurfs – Dreams.

Color me Smurfed. You may ask: what does that mean? In the Smurf language, it seems like it can be applied to anything at any given time, positive or negative. It is not easy for a human to understand Smurfs, and that is possibly why so many of their games prove to be so underwhelming. Though the series has been going on for over sixty years and contains over a hundred vastly different characters throughout a plethora of stories, it seems like capturing their magic in a playable state has proven to be a Gargamelian endeavor.

Gargamel scheming with a glowing, purple potion
One of the most terrifying figures of my childhood

This is why I was consistently surprised by how much I enjoyed The Smurfs – Dreams. The same goes for a younger family member I tried out the co-op with. After picking our Smurfs from the two available, we both jumped into the dream world after Gargamel charmed nearly the entire Smurf Village, starting with the dream or rather the nightmare of Chef Smurf. I was impressed with the imaginative use of a candy world aesthetic, driving every Smurf in the village to sickness from overeating, while she was impressed by being able to wave at other Smurfs with a press of a button, many of whom would then wave back, some even awarding her with the game’s skin-unlocking currency.

The environments here are friendly and rich in character, ranging from relatively minimalistic to little pit stops full of other Smurf. After freeing the dreamscape’s prisoner, the player will be thrust back into the real world, where in the Smurf Village they can observe and interact with newly awoken Smurfs. My initial impressions of the theming were positive, but I expected it all to go downhill soon after, with either reuse or a more uninspired set of ideas following suit.

Smurfs stuck in orange goo
What I assume to be caramel serves as a gameplay mechanic perfectly befitting Chef’s dream, preventing the player’s Smurf from jumping

My worries seemingly materialized soon after, with Tailor Smurf’s dream consisting of simpler platformer challenges built entirely out of sandy platforms. Then, when I entered Smurfette’s dream, seemingly a very basic tropical island, I was ready for The Smurfs – Dreams to disappoint, yet it turned out to work in favor of a nice visual and gameplay twist related to her backstory.

Another highlight worth noting came during Vanity Smurf’s dream, where one of the levels featured mirrors in the background of the level. These would, of course, show things that did not exist on the playable side, making for an entertaining treat for the eyes as they switched between the top and bottom half of my screen. It did not stop there, as this unique camera positioning would allow for new ways of hiding secrets, even irrelevant to the main gimmick of the level.

A tetromino-shaped Smurf falling into a hole
Behold: A Smerfomino. Pretty sure it can go into a square hole.

The same world features two more of my favorites. One of them was a Tetris-themed falling section where your Smurf gets continuously transformed into different shapes and has to fit through various holes. The other was a stealth section (is it truly a licensed game without at least one?) featuring some runaway pants. Both did not overstay their welcome, and fit the theme of the world—Vanity Smurf, of course, fears humiliation above all else, and his world does a fantastic job creating multiple scenarios to explore that through gameplay.

Great theming and great gimmicks! After completing Smurfette’s dream I realized that The Smurfs – Dreams is consistently split between larger worlds, with each level featuring five astral mushroom collectibles alongside a yarn (found by spotting moving objects which, upon being waved at, turn into a Smurf), and shorter sets of more single-minded stages, with three mushrooms per level, each featuring the same sand theme throughout. Both are packed with great content that never overstays its welcome, yet always has the time to develop its ideas into plenty of clever secrets and challenges, keeping up a great sense of pace. I would love for the level of quality theming to be equal for all dreamscapes, but as it stands the differentiation between the main and the optional works well enough.

A level name in the sand level reading: An Impostor Among Us
Still going strong with this meme I see

A sharp eight-hour runtime spread over thirty-two levels—each introducing either an interesting twist on a player’s preconceptions or a brand new idea to breathe life into the experience—is an ideal length for The Smurfs – Dreams. Players looking for a one-and-done burst of good time for a week will find enough high-quality content here to look back on fondly, and those who want to keep returning to it will find an impressive amount of depth in its variety and unique moveset.

On the ground, pressing the run button not only speeds you up but also adds a little bit of slipperiness to your step, providing just a bit of pleasant friction to even the basic actions. In the air, however, you can choose from pressing the jump button again to glide and gain a bit of height or spawn a bubble that immediately stops your momentum and keeps you in place until you either break it or launch yourself forward. My only complaint is the jump, which reaches its peak height unnaturally fast. While running, your Smurf will do a mid-air roll at that moment, which does mask the effect a bit.

A golden rail leading towards a menacing green castle
These golden rails serve as a bit of a dull downtime, transporting the player between different sections of a level

Though The Smurfs – Dreams rarely requires using this repertoire in full, I appreciated the opportunities it provided during longer platforming gauntlets. The younger family member I mentioned earlier struggled a bit with using the bubble especially, but thanks to the fact that they could at any point turn into a lantern that follows the other player, we were able to get through any challenge. Even if they charged at a challenge head-on and failed, we could laugh it off as long as I made it through. I, on the other hand, would often fail while trying to show off, which made for an entertaining co-op dynamic thanks to the very generous checkpoints.

Although I think Ocellus Studio has created what is likely the best Smurfs game of all time, there is still plenty of room for improvement. The lowlights of the whole experience are undoubtedly its combat arenas. Typically with a few waves of enemies you must either use your gadget or jump on, I much preferred the similarly structured collecting challenges, where you have to grab all the golden clovers in an area. Shame, because the boss selection is pretty great in comparison, using the height difference between the Smurfs and their adversaries to great effect in short survive-a-thon sections.

A giant man screaming at two small Smurfs on a platform
The bosses tap into the sense of scale that would otherwise feel missing from a game about small blue fellas

Even on the highest settings, The Smurfs – Dreams can look a bit rough in places. Sometimes character models can look a bit iffy, with textures clipping through others on close-ups or some sharp edges sticking out here and there. The music is also a major disappointment, with completely forgettable, overly grandiose arrangements that do absolutely nothing for the otherwise whimsical soundscape.

With these caveats, The Smurfs – Dreams is a glowing recommendation for any 3D platformer enthusiast, anyone searching for some good co-op time with the youngins, and any fellow licensed game nut. It is a perfect example of how a good use of a property can guide and enrich a game. Ocellus Studio, following a similarly successful Marsupilami: Hoobadventure, is shaping up to be an incredibly promising developer, and while I would personally love to see them work on more licensed games, whatever they choose to work on next will immediately rocket to the top of my wishlist.

Mateusz played The Smurfs – Dreams on PC with a review code.

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