Review by: : Brandon "Lobster Knight" Cackowski-Schnell

Once again it's time to pick up your handy pencil or crayon and help those cute, cuddly Raposa's with their current problems. Wilfre is back to his old tricks, stealing all the color from the Raposas' world and only you, The Creator, and your hastily scribbled creations can stop him.

The game adheres to the same formula of the original DS outing and livens up the simplified platforming with the ability to create many of the game's elements. Whether you use the provided templates as a starting point, switching up body parts willy-nilly or choose to go full on creative you'll be tasked with drawing your character, your weapons, various vines, platforms, elevators, healing items and other assorted platforming tropes.

At first I was a green, multi-tentacled alien armed only with my trusty lightsaber. After a few levels I had enough money to buy some additional melee attacks as well as a gun so I promptly created a fish gun which is to say I made a big, smiling fish that shot out smaller, smiling fish. At this point I decided to take the seafood motif full circle and Lobster Knight was born complete with fork emblazoned bib.

As you can tell the whacky creativity found in the first game is back in full force, although lacking the coloring stages that I was so enamored with. Creating items on the DS is a natural fit and the various tools as well as multiple zoom levels means you can have as much creativity over your drawings as you'd like. Some of the tools, namely the template editing for the character models are somewhat complicated and may be difficult for younger kids, but at the same time, using a precreated model is but a button press away and more models can be purchased with coins collected during levels.

The only complaint about the drawing is that unless you're a seriously talented 8-bit artist your creations will stand out like sore thumbs compared to the well drawn game elements and backgrounds. You certainly get used to it, but it would have been great to have some way of applying some shading to your creations so that they match the game's visual style.

The platforming retains its basic roots providing a fairly easy experience for platforming vets but enough of a challenge for younger players to stay interested. Every level has coins to collect as well as color drops, the latter needed to unlock additional areas and move the story along. Health icons abound making restarts rare however the difficulty does ramp up as the game progresses so be on the alert for your child's cries of help. The platfoming seems tighter in general this time around as does the hit detection for your three weapon choices.

This combined with three attacks per weapon, all purchasable as upgrades, means that enemies shouldn't provide much of a struggle provided you use the right tool for the job. Levels are relatively short, a good thing given that losing all of your health means that you start the current level's section from scratch. Levels also show a nice degree of variety all reflecting your current setting and occasionally mix things up with vehicle sections that provide a welcome respite from all of the jumping, lightsabering and fish shooting.

New to the series is Action Drawing which also serves to provide variety to the platforming. Here you'll be treated to navigation puzzles that are solved by drawing various lines with ink that turns the lines into elevators or falling platforms or trampolines. It's an interesting concept, and one that's better implemented in the Wii version of the game, but it doesn't do much more than provide a small break from the action.