Smurfs: The Prisoner of the Green Stone

Game'scover

About the Game

Smurfs: The Prisoner of the Green Stone is an action adventure game based on the popular series of Smurfs and acts as a sequel to the Mission Villeaf game which was released back in 2021. The game was once again developed by Osome Studio which was formed in 2013 and gain their popularity from their works on plenty of Asterix and Obelix Games such as Asterix and Obelix XXL3. Their previous Smurfs title was met with average reviews tilting more towards the possitive side. The game was published by the french publishers Microids. The game was released in November 2023 and it's physical release came in 2 forms:
Standard
Included the game alone
Launch Edition
Exclusive to Switch: Includs the game,Lithograph, Digital CD, Poster, stickers Extra costumes.

Who are and what is the Smurfs?

The smurfs or the Smurf's Adventures is a Belgian comic series that first debuted in 1958 and they still publish stories with the latest Comic released in 2021(as of now Feb. 2022). The smurfs popularity expanded in 1981 with the release of Tv show which lasted approximately 9 years and shared over 419 stories. The smurfs nowadays still have their episodes shown in TV in various channels and also get new episodes and specials in the form of 3D CGi than their typical hand drawn animation. The characters of smurfs expanded in various media and some of them were music. The smurfs have various songs and various of Cds localised in many countries. It was a matter of time before Holywood bought the licence to make movies based on the franchise and so as early as 2012 the blue creatures hit the big screen in a live action adabtation feauturing the smurfs as CGI characters next to actors like Niel Patrick Harris. The movie's sales were high and so the movie's profit allowed for a sequel and a complete new CGI film with it's own original story.

Smurfs takes place in a deep forest long long long ago where a tiny mushroom village exist which is inhabitent by small blue creatures known as smurfs. Smurfs are tiny blue creatures that wear white trousers and white beanies and look mainly the same with a few small changes to make each one unique. Smurfs are mainly males, however there are a few female characters that were introduce as the series progress. Smurfs are gently creatures filled with Joy and love and work everyday to keep the forest and their hometown clean and safe. However in the outskirts of the same forest, there was Gargamel, an evil powerful wizards whose goal is to captured every single smurf and find their village. The goal of Gargamel differs in various variations, in some media, Gargamel's goal is to capture them to make them into a delicious soup while in others he simply wishes to use them as materials for his spells. Needless to say, no matter how many times Gargamel and his pet cat Nazriel try, the smurfs are always there to help each other and prevent the wizard from achieving his goal. As the series went on more villains were introduce but the main villain and most popular will always be Gargamel.

Story of the Game

Storm
Smurfs Prisoner of the Green Stone is a direct sequel to villeaf, however it can be enjoyed even without knowing the prior entry. The only reference to 2021's title comes in the first five minutes of the game where the Poet smurf recalls the events of the smurfiser. This time arround Handy smurf created a new machine known as the Smurfomix a great machine capable of producing cakes and other delicacies. The smurfomix was a grean invention however, after a while its cakes became rotten and uneatabble. Handy smurf tried to repair the machine but it was not possible. One night he sneek into Papasmurfs lab, and found his solution by reading about a specific material which seemed to be his only solution to his problem. His answer was to use a material known as the Green stone. Unfortunately the only one available to him was in the hands of the evil Alchemist Gargamel.

Handy then assembles a team of three smurfs in order to break into Gargamels castle and steal a small piece of the stone. When the smurfs found the Stone, Handy tried to take a piece but in his efforts to do so, he broke the stone into multiple pieces. As a result an evil entity known as Stolas was set free. With the release of Stolas multiple portals appeared around the area leading into different areas which were now under Stolas's threat. The smurfs were unaware of what just happened but Gargamel explains how the entire world is in danger as Stolas's powers are scary and can easily end the world. In a surprise turn of events, the smurfs and Gargamel decide to temporarily call it a truce in order to capture the evil spirit and put it back inside the rock. Gargamel and the smurfs will work in the castle in order to prepare a new sealling vessel whilst some of the smurfs will try to find where Stolas gone. The adventure begins and its filled with mystery as to what can happen, as we dont know what is Stolas plans, and we dont know how this new teamwork between the Smurfs and Gargamel is gonna go down.

Thoughts on the Story

The story of the game very similar to its prequel, is short,simple and yet very effective. It is a normal tale that involves the beloved smurfs who find themselves in trouble. The game is fully voice acted as every piece of dialogue is escorted with the appropriate voice actor. However, very similar to the Asterix & Obelix XXL3 and the previous smurfs games, there are not many in game cutscenes. The narration of the story's plot is given through a smurf known as Poet writting and narrating the story. This time around the smurfs up their game as they use a projector with hand drawn pictures made by the Poet smurf as he narrates the event prior to the gameplay. To elaborate, the prologue and epilogue are mainly the projector scenes, and each time the players finish off a chapter or are about to enter a new, the Poet will set the stage. While playing the game, it never felt as if it was missing the animated action as a fairytale was proven an effective way to tell it's story. It is also worth mentioning how the Poet is rhyming every phrase of his. Once the game jumps into the ingame graphicks, the playable smurf will exchange dialogue with any of the smurfs like Papasmurf and Handy however, the scene will show the two smurfs next to each other and at the bottom, the frame of the talking smurf will appear with the text being spoken. These scenes are also fully voice acted in every scene. The few cutscenes that it has are of good quality but nothing groundbreaking.

Gameplay

Brainy
Smurfs the prisoner of the Green stone can be enjoyed in both Single player and in Local Co-op, there is no online multiplayer. If the game is proceed in multiplayer, the two players share the same screen, however, the camera will focus on player 1. It is important to mention that once again in Co-op the first player will be instantly locked on the Smurf Character who is currently on it's mission while player 2 will be locked on the Smurfomix which is locked on the smurfs back. The way Coop works is that Player one, controls the movement of the smurf, controls the camera and is also able to shoot with the smurfomix. Player 2 on the other hand, has 0 mobility and 0 camera movement. All they can do is aim and shoot where their target is. Visualy, Player 2 appears as an extra hand comming out of the back of the smurf.

Unlike before, the sequel was heavily inspired by the Ratchet and Clank series as the core gameplay resembles the series. The game is an action adventure platformer that also uses third person shooter elements with the addition of the Smurfomix. The players are given control of 4 smurfs:

  1. Storm: Who is a very courageous Smurf
  2. Brainy: Who wishes to make Papasmurf proud of him
  3. Dimwitty: Who is here for the Vibe and adventure
  4. Handy: Who is here to fix his mistake
NOTE: Each Smurf is playable on their own level/Chapter however the player can swap between them by accessing the menu when revisiting an older area or other locations given that the level was cleared prior during the main story. At the same time, after clearing the game, in the hub world the previous playable heroes will sit in a circle and when you approach them you can swap to that hero. The Smurfs game similar to before, is a 3D platformer that offers a great experience but does not do something new to the genre. Unlike before, the game has all the abilities of a standard platformer unlocked from the start. This means that the player can walk, sprint, dash, air dash, jump, double jump, dash and stomp the ground. With the use of the smurfomix, the players are allowed to shoot different things that they see such as enemies and environmental properties.
The smurfomix on its own is capable of shooting a specific type of bullets, but with the help of near by plants their weapons can change. When the smurfs approach these plants they can absorb them into their weapon.
  1. Honey seed
    2. This weapon shoots faster than the normal bullets and enemies that are hit will move slower or be stucked at the ground. Shooting it, will cause a honey explosion. Shooting Honey in certain environmental items will temporarily freeze them
  2. Heart Seed
    3. The heart is capable of healing the smurf. When shot, an explosion will take place that will heal the smurf if its in the area.
  3. Blue Tulip
    4. This weapon shoots explosive balls that push enemies away. The explosions chain react when near white surfaces. Shooting it, will cause a plasma explosion. Shooting a plasma bullet in certain location can push the items in order to create passages or platforms.
  4. Purple Tulip
    5. This weapon has a powerfull blast that when charged it can create vines that can trap enemies together. Shooting it also creates and explosion, but when shooting items located near enemies, vines will trap the mobs and leave them vonurable. During exploration they can be used to pull items towards them.
Dimwitty
To its core the gameplay is focussed on platforming and shooting the enemies when needed. The player controls one smurf at a time as it embarks on its mission. The maps are seperated in different parts, and the goal is to reach the end of each one. In most cases there's a boss battle awaiting at the end. During combat different monsters will appear to attack the player. The goal is to avoid the incomming hits and shoot the enemies in order to elliminate them. Each enemy has a weak spot that once shot will deal more damage. Each of the weapons have different shooting rate and different effect on enemies(eg. shooting a flying enemy with honey will force them on the ground.). Each smurf is also tide to a unique ability that can be triggered with a tap of a button onced charged. Each ability is unique to the personality of the smurf.
These abilities are :
  1. Storm: Special Bow attack- deals critical damage
  2. Brainy: Thorws Potions that cause different explosions
  3. Dimwitty: throws a Carrot that acts as a distaction and also deals damage
  4. Handy: Improves the fire rate, speed and damage of the Smurfomix without overheating it.
The player can only die from one of two reasons. Die via platforming where they fall to their doom, or die by the enemy attacks. A death is nothing to be upset over as the game has alot of checkpoints. Furthermore when entering compat theres an automatic save right there, so a death will just restart the encounter. During encounters the player will get a visible notification as to how many enemies have to be eliminated before proceeding with their adventure.

Maps

Storm

Each of the chapters takes place into a completely different setup. Gargamels castle acts as a hub world for the player to access the different areas. Each area is represented by a big portal that the player can jump inside. The portals of all the challeges are also located in the back as smaller red portals. Each smurf takes on a different location around the smurfs world. Storm's adventure takes place around the forest. the scereny is filled with green trees, bushes and overall environment. The player can also use the nearby items to manuver around such as bouncy mushrooms and broken trees in the river. Dimwitty's adventure takes place in snowy mountains where the main elements are snow, frozen lakes and strong winds. Once again the Players can use the environment to their advantage. For example taking advance of the wind current to make a larger jump. This effects can also act as an obstacle to kill the player. Brainly smurf takes us to a familiar part of the forest from the first game, however this time around things are corrupted or broken. There re toxic water ponds that will kill the payer upon landing and a lot of jumping among the trees. Last but not least handy smurf adventure i consider it spoilers, but lets just say its more unique than the rest.

Collectables and Currency

Unlike the previous title, this one seems to have removed most of the collectables from the game. That is not to say that there will be zero rewards for exploration. A recycled theme is the clearance of the area. In mission Vileaf the heroes had to move around cleanning the forest from the the effects of the Vinleaf, this time around Stolas is crystalizing the area and the smurfs have to clean it by shooting on them. Each time you shoot a crystalised area, you can see a bar with a percentage indicating how clean that area is. Breaking the crystals reward you with special currency which can be spent in order to upgrade the smurfomix. Around the map there are hidden bell plants. The smurfs have to absorb the plants power until it gets dried. These special seeds are used to upgrade the smurfs special powers. Unlike the clearance of the area theres no indicationas to how many are left around the world. Furthermore, another type of "collectable" is the Challenge Gates/Portals. These red portals are hidden aroud the levels. The smurfs might give the player a hint that one is near by, but its up to the player to discover them. These portals will test the player skills as most of them need to be cleared within a given time and award the player with small awards ( mainly for upgrades.) The last type of collectable is smurf's costumes. This a simple cosmetic change and re usually obtain by the challenge portals given you finished within the time of the reward(they re usualy locked on platinum or gold rank).

Overall Synopsis

weird map
Overall Smurfs the prisoner of the Green stone is a fun game and an overall improvement from its previous entry. The story of the game is simple but effective keeping it close to how story events are told in the Comic books and in the old cartoons. Each of the smurf's characters are fun and voiced in a good way that shows each ones personality. Unlike before, the word 'smurf' is not being overused which is something i appreciated. It is also worth mentioning how smurfs who re not playable and barely are on the game still have their personality shown one way or another such as Smurfete Papasmurf and others. The plot is simple to follow and enough to allow the smurfs to venture around in different worlds. The gameplay is good for single player but unfair for Co-op as player 2 is the definition of just being there. Nevertheless Co-op is still Co-op. The gameplay is not as smooth as the Ratchet and Clank series but its still mechanicks are crystal clear and well polished. The enemy variety is fair for its portion but they re not that different with each other. The stages/maps are well designed with various of platforming challenges and puzzles. Overall its a pleasant game which will take the players into a smurfastic adventure.

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