The Smurfs: Dreams PS5 Review. The beloved blueish and Belgian comic book and TV characters, the Smurfs, have spawned various video game spin-offs over the years, but their ambitions are now reaching for the skies in Smurfs Dreams. Far from a snoozer, Smurfs Dreams carries the platforming joy and accessibility of Super Mario Odyssey, and the recent PS5 sensation Astro Bot, and molds them into a short-yet-Smurftastic game both children and adults alike can giddily embrace. Can Smurfs Dreams do enough to distinguish itself from its brethren though, or is this a dream you’d rather wake up from?
Smurfs Dreams PS5 Review
A Smurf-tastic Success That Makes The Blue Team’s Dreams Come True!
As with your typical Super Mario adventure, The Smurfs Dreams story keeps things light and fluffy. The evil wizard Gargamel has ensured that The Smurfs leaf-nibbling from Sarsaparilla bushes comes with a side-effect of sleepiness which entraps the blue brood in a state of prolonged lala land. Your job is to awaken The Smurfs and stop Gargamel from entering Smurf Village and tarnishing it with his draconian presence, and indeed wake those Smurfs from their slumber.
Don’t be dismayed by the lack of depth and nuance to Smurfs Dreams’ tale, as its premise is meant to be straightforward to understand so it can avoid getting bogged down by minutia and convolution. This is a game with children in mind after all, and any complexity would likely surf over their heads like one of those puffy clouds you see throughout the Smurfs Dreams Adventure. Children crave immediacy and won’t want to recollect laborious lore years after playing, but they most-likely will remember Smurfs Dreams for its colourful and memorable platforming stages.
The dreamy ambiance of Smurfs Dreams is idyllic with fluffy clouds, blue skies, and golden rails you can grind along to reach the next area of a stage. The sugary sweetness of the level design is truly eye-catching to behold as well with cakey and chocolate-covered layouts, Smartie-like stones, Mr Whippy ice cream decorations, and doughnuts you can spot on the surface along with some of the sleeping or idle Smurfs. Of course this is to say the Smurfs are ensnared into sweet dreams, and the presentation of this is hammered home very pleasingly-though the music could’ve done with some lullabies to further bolster the aesthetic.
A Smurfed-Up Adventure With Mario-Sized Ambition
Smurfs Dreams isn’t afraid to change up the drama with fire-scorched levels, stealth sections where your smurf tiptoes around levels avoiding guards, majestic stages adorned with flowers, paved flooring and Smurf statues, as well as dark and eerie sets with gloomy and uncomfortably ominous clouds that turn Smurfy sweet dreams into nightmares. These more menacing levels aren’t difficult nor are they frustrating, but the switch to a more sinister tone shows that there is some dexterity to give this plucky platformer a healthy dose of diversity.
The actual platforming of Smurfs Dreams isn’t too dissimilar from those lauded Super Mario adventures. You’ll jump on bugs to squish them, activate sparkly-coloured boards to pick up collectibles, utilize a bubble capable of suspending you in the air, which is ultra-useful when the platform behind you closes and the one in front of you opens up, and use a dedicated button on the PS5 controller to wake Smurfs from their sleep-addled state, and they may even be hiding a precious mushroom for you if you’re fortunate.
Not that Smurfs Dreams ever intends to trump Mario at his own genre, but Smurfs Dreams is a surprisingly cool and worthwhile adventure game to play. The smoothness of the gameplay is a bit lacking and of course it isn’t a triple A production, so it does lack some oomph, but for the most part it’s a pleasing and conveniently digestible little curiosity that’s worth your time-especially when the big boys come out to play….speaking of which!
A Blazing Blue Bounty of Collectibles And Brutish Bosses
Boss battles are scattered throughout the short runtime of Smurfs Dreams and typically feature a giant villain attempting to smash you off course. Big Mouth (nothing to do with that awful Netflix animated show) and his portly girth and triangular bonce, is quite the hungry beast boy as he can suck the set dressing dry as he vacuums up everything into his mouth, and you need to avoid getting swallowed up too. Later on, you’ll encounter a giant Smurf you need to tiptoe past, revealing reminders of the Scarecrow sections from Batman Arkham Asylum.
Chock full of cherry-sized fruits and hidden celestial mushrooms to collect, as well as Smurfs to wake up, Smurfs Dreams features many collectibles, and if you’re at all disappointed by the lack of difficulty, then the true challenge will come from finding every treasure this game has to offer. You’ll need to search every nook and cranny of the levels to find all the doodads, and you gotta locate all those sleeping Smurfs as well!
Arcadey Accessibility Amps Up Smurfdom
When you biggest responsibility in Smurfs Dreams is finding all of its prizes, you got to think it’s a pretty pleasurable and laid-back game. Yes, Smurfs Dreams is a pleasant and relatively cozy adventure platformer, and it’s a lovely little delight thanks to how it refuses to punish players for mistakes, instead appreciating your time by giving you all the variety you could want inside a three-five hour game, and granting you reprieves from some of the genres more taxing features.
The accessibility of this Smurfed-up platforming experience invites all ages to come along without some of the classic penalties that a Nintendo platformer dolls out if you fall off a level and need to start again. You won’t lose anything you collect if you drop into an abyss, you’ll simply be dropped back to the nearest checkpoint and you’ll be ready to go again. Likewise, you won’t need to worry about losing lives that’ll force you to restart a stage all over again, which is just another way the Smurfs exercises its gentle and welcoming platforming so that everybody can enjoy it easily.
If you ever fancied a short but sweet Mario-style platformer, you’re certainly in luck with Smurfs Dreams. Clocking in at between three-five hours depending on whether you want to just complete the story or collect everything the game has to offer, Smurfs Dreams has enough sparkle and charm to keep you entertained, and will go over sweetly with the little ones.
If you’re looking for a next-level platformer that rivals Super Mario, you maybe disappointed and in the future you should seriously consider lowering your expectations, but the good news is Smurfs Dreams is an enjoyable and worthwhile slice of adventuring starring the clan of blue. Every level is bursting with colour and sweetness, the boss battles are goliath-sized and memorable, and the game packs more into three hours than many triple or quadruple-A games can manage in 30.
No, you may not remember it as fondly as the latest Mario title, the platforming is a bit stodgy, and it generally won’t excite you as much as the big boys, but gosh dangit, does Smurfs Dreams deserve respect for favouring approachability over punishment, and should be a worthwhile present to any child who loves upbeat platformers. Any adult should give this a shot as well because it’s a wonderfully designed game that really deserves attention.
Smurfs Dreams was released on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC on October 23, 2024.
Review code kindly supplied by PR.
