Dewy's Adventure

Employing the titling level mechanic of Kororinpa, what’s surprising about Dewy’s control scheme is the holding of the remote in the horizontal position as opposed to the more obviously tilt-friendly vertical grip. Tilting the remote angles the levels, sending our amorphous hero slipping towards his goals, and the horizontal hold allows Konami to introduce far more complicated elements to the gameplay due to the D-pad now being in thumb-able distance.

In a nod to/open daylight pillaging of Mercury Meltdown Revolution, little Dewy can bring about exothermic and endothermic reactions within his liquid body which, as anyone well versed in thermodynamics will know, heats the surrounding environment or absorbs heat respectively. Unlike in real thermodynamics where a plethora of chemicals, rubber gloves and long white lab coats are required ingredients for such a reaction, it is achieved in the game with a D-pad prod of up or down.

In his normal state Dewy washes around with all the ease of, well, a water droplet, but in this state he is weak - no match for the black water. Heat him up and, as if by magic/actual physics, Dewy evaporates into a cloud and develops the ability to smite enemies below with lightning. Being able to float enables him to access new areas and be blown around using player-summoned gusts of wind, controlled by fanning the remote. Heat activated switches dot the landscape and certain obstacles require melting to progress.

At the other end of the spectrum Dewy can cool himself down, freezing himself into a vicious block of enemy-crushing power. A violent change from a peaceful cloud into an icicle causes Dewy to plummet his now razor-sharp buttocks into the skull of an unsuspecting black water thing below. In this state anything he comes into contact with grows colder, helpfully freezing potentially deadly ponds - for what good would our watered down protagonistbeif absorbed into a larger mass of the wet stuff?