Adorkable: The Hero can definitely be played as such with their more excitable dialogue options, and makes a habit of doing a cheery victory dance or air guitar solo after a successful mission. Or whenever they get bored.
Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: The general consensus of the DS games (sans the Spongebob Squarepants version) is that while the story is really well-written, the gameplay is enjoyable at best but boring at worst.
Regarding the Dream Apocalypse. Because the Raposa are rooted in Mike's imagination, it's impossible to destroy them outright. The most he could do is put them aside for a while to wake and live in Real Life. But dreams are by nature recurrent (that's just science!). The next time he sleeps and dreams, the Raposa are free to return as Mike imagines them. Sure, this makes Mike God and the Devil to them, but that's not a foreign concept to the game.
In addition, leaving Mike in a coma to die would not have done the Raposa any favors. As products of his mind, they are a part of him. With Mike dead, they're dead too.
Heather's last words before being kidnapped at the start of the second DS game, "Kemi-kewa, kemi-kewa". Astute players may realize there is a meaning. "Wake Mike! Wake Mike!"
Some of the Raposa saved in the first game are odd choices, to say the least: A pirate crew, an Indiana Jones expy, a vampire, a bodyguard... It all makes sense after The Reveal. Mike is the young boy who thought this world up, so his subconscious is creating Raposa characters based on types of characters he likes.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The game was more popular in Australia than in any other place. In fact, it even has its own DS case there!
Moral Event Horizon: Wilfre crosses it when he murders the Mayor by ambushing him deep in the forest to steal the book of life and destroy all the creations in the first game.
Signature Scene: (The original) end credits of The Next Chapter, due to the jarring Art Shift and the revelation that the whole series started because of a car crash.
Also, the Final Boss fights in the first two games, not for the fights themselves, but for the music.
Popular with Furries: Being Fox Folk (as well as being just adorable), the Raposa have quite some fans in the Furry Fandom. Wilfre and Mari especially get a lot of attention, due to the former being the most popular character in the series by far and the latter being the only major adult female character.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Seeing how you draw your own character, you can choose to make them male or female (or otherwise). However, there's no way to actually set the gender, and your character will be referred to as "he" and "him" various places in the game even if they're a girl.
Original Game
Demonic Spiders: The shadow creatures, especially in the fights with Deadwood and the Angler King, in which they come in packs and take multiple hits to defeat.
Disappointing Last Level: Rapo Towers is an example of a Disappointing Penultimate Level, really. It's extremely slow-paced, and jumping up the falling chairs is repetitive and tedious, and it's also quite labyrinthine, which could cause one to get lost within it. Thankfully, Shadow Lair, the real final level, makes up for this by being faster-paced, having more straightforward platforming, and having an awesome Final Boss theme.
Funny Moments: Typically, you're instructed to "Draw X for Y." wherever the situation fits. When you get to designing Cookie's restaurant sign, the game encourages you to try and do a little sabotage.
"Design a terrible sign for Chef Cookie's restaurant!" Cookie: "No, I beg of you! Make it a masterpiece!"
Deadwood's an example of this trope due to the obnoxious platforming required for his tree form and its second form due to how fast it moves.
There's also the Angler King, who constantly spawns Goddamned Bats and has a nasty tendency to rack up damage fast due to hard-to-dodge attacks and Collision Damage, which is a problem because A. the Angler King is huge and B. the character moves slowly in water.
That One Level: Conch Ruins. This level is a headache. On top of the usual "gather four Book of Life pages and rescue three Raposa" task, you're also tasked with finding gems and then finding the statues they go in so that tikis blocking your path will get out of your way, as well as finding conches that cause stone pillars to fall that let you progress.
The Next Chapter
Anti-Climax Boss: In this game, Wilfre takes several levels in badass from the first game, being able to shapeshift and drain color from pretty much anything, even space, and during the final battle he's completely invincible at first. However, once the Raposa's prayers reach the Creator and they destroy Wilfre's scepter, he pulls out his "ultimate creation": a cloud with a throne that only has three attacks: an extremely easy-to-dodge lightning strike, a swooping attack that's only slightly tougher to dodge, and a tornado attack that can easily be manipulated into not harming you. It's safe to say that despite the constant threat he posed throughout the story, Wilfre went out with a whimper once it came time to fight him.
Broken Base: The game's ending: either its an emotionally powerful and bold finale or it is a nihilistic Sudden Downer Ending that tramples on the legacy of the series. Though the release of Two Realms has softened the debate for confirming The Raspoa's world continued to exist even after Mike woke up.
Demonic Spiders: We have robotic ducks that fire energy balls. They're in the Galactic Jungle, where there are a lot of hazards, and insta-kill spikes are introduced, and being hit by one of the energy balls can knock you quite a few feet back. This can knock you into one of the hazards, including poisonous green liquid, spikes, and Bottomless Pits.
Even Better Sequel: Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter is regarded to be much better than the original game, as it improved the platforming and the controls, removed the unnecessary backtracking, and had a much better story in general.
Fanon Discontinuity: The censored ending of the next chapter featured in the Drawn to life collection compilation that replaced the Sudden Downer Ending in the original version where Mike wakes up from a coma dream courtesy of a car crash.The ending that replaced the original being an accident due to Mike falling from a tree and knocking himself out. This ending didn't sit well with many people due to weakening the impact of the The Reveal and opening up some Plot Holes, to the point that Two Realms made this revised ending Canon Discontinuity, instead continuing where the original ending left off. To quote a comment of the video:
"Yeah, no. I'll take the believable comatose explanation of a fatal car crash. That one explains much more about the game and characters anyway."
Game-Breaker: The Hyper Shot upgrade for the Shooter. Not only can you shoot up, but you can shoot a bullet practically any damn time you want. This makes defeating the Giant Robosa and Wilfre much easier, and the latter is already hilariously easy.
Goddamned Bats: Vine bugs. They knock you off the vine you're on if you touch them.
It's Easy, So It Sucks!: A common complaint for Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter. Most stages in the game tend to be filled with easy-to-kill enemies and very few truly threatening hazards.
It Was His Sled: Outside of its core demographic, The Next Chapter is most well known for its emotional gut punch of an ending, where it is revealed that the entire game's plot took place inside of Mike's dreams, after he had been rendered comatose and hospitalized in a car accident. This ending was so dark, in fact, that it was entirely rewritten due to complaints from parents so that Mike is instead simply knocked unconscious after falling from a tree, though this ending was criticized by fans for lacking the impact the original had.
Low-Tier Letdown: The Slasher is generally ignored in favor of the Shooter and the Slinger. While the fully upgraded Shooter is the best weapon in the game when it comes to DPS and the fully upgraded Slinger can fire in 8 directions and perform a circle attack, the Slasher is pretty much only capable of a generic melee attack, and even when fully upgraded it's underwhelming (its special is just a sliding attack similar to your standard melee attack).
Magnificent Bastard: Wilfre, a Raposa corrupted by his attempt to use the Book of Life and upstage the Creator, becomes more cunning in this sequel. A self-styled savior of the Raposa world, Wilfre fosters all the misery of the game by manipulating and deceiving the leader of the Raposa villages, while secretly simultaneously masqeurading as the thief Salem and the heroes' own friend Sock, betraying them when it's too late for them to do anything about it. Wilfre finally manages to break Mari's will solely by telling her the truth about the world; all of it is a mere dream caused by a car accident that sent Token Human Mike into a coma, with all of Wilfre's efforts a sincere but deluded effort to preserve the world no matter what.
Moment of Awesome: After "Sock" is revealed to be Wilfre and betrays everyone by leaving them behind, Crazy Barks decides to use the hat Wilfre used for his "Sock" persona as a new sail, which helps the heroes reach Wilfre's Wasterland.
Crazy Barks:"CRAZYBARKSWILLBECOMEDESTINYSAIL."
Nightmare Fuel: The ending of the DS version of The Next Chapter. Once you make the connection to the beginning, you find out that the Raposa are ending their own world, and watched the end credits, nevermind that it was All Just a Dream., Still, see Fridge Brilliance above for some possible High Octane Nightmare Retardant.
The Council is comprised of a bunch of dolls that look conspicuously like dead bodies.
The Wii game has this little bit of dialogue from Heather:
Heather: Wilfre is a very bad Rapo. He made Mari's daddy dead. Sometimes I see Wilfre in my dreams.
In the third game, the third boss(es). The second phase has a laser that is very hard to dodge and kills you the instant you touch it.
The Giant Robosa. While the robot itself is fairly easy, the eyes and heart have Bullet Hell-ish attacks. Even worse is the heart, which has turrets that fire homing missiles at you.
Actually, practically the entire GalacticJungle is That One World!
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The censored ending from The Next Chapter gets this treatment from the fans. Just look at the comments of the ending where not only express a preference to the original ending but accuses the censored one of undoing the impact, emotion and Fridge Logic the original had, especially the part where Mike's coma was due of him falling from a tree instead of him getting involved on a car crash with his family.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The second game, with slavery, government decay, and the Sudden Downer Ending: everyone ends up dying due to a Dream Apocalypse, caused by a car crash which ended up killing the parents of the human protagonist Mike and sending him into a coma, and his ensuing dream being the plot of Drawn to Life. The credits in the collection series was specifically retooled into something Lighter and Softer due to complaints elicited from the ending.
Salvaged Story: Due to complaints from the revised ending of the game in the Compilation Re-release, Two Realms undoes the censored ending as it takes place after the original ending of The Next Chapter.
Awesome Music: Doodlebob's first and second battle themes. They perfectly encapsulate his chaotic and dangerous nature, while being really catchy in their own right.
Breather Boss: Doodle Patrick is much easier than both the first and second Doodlebob battles. He's rather slow compared to his friend, and despite his Sizeshifter abilities, you can easily counter most of his attacks by simply karate chopping him or jumping on him, though his spinning attack becomes harder to dodge as he grows bigger.
Demonic Spiders: Doodle Sandys are very agile, being able to jump, dive into the player, and kick around the place. Their speed makes it difficult to hit them as well.
The Doodle Dudes in general are this, what with their tendency to spawn in large numbers while you're trying to scrub away the doodle goo they come from, which comes in far larger quantities than the shadow goo in the original Drawn to Life. Needless to say, getting rid of both them and their doodle goo is easier said than done.
Scrappy Mechanic: Having to redraw every single Doodle Dude you fight seems more like Padding than anything. The redrawn Doodle Dudes also ironically do more harm than good, since they tend to hide the doodle goo you're supposed to be cleaning.
Surprise Difficulty: On Normal Mode (note that this game doesn't have a Hard Mode), this game is surprisingly tough for its target audience. Enemies frequently flood the screen, especially when doodle goo is involved, and many of them fire projectiles at you. Later on, the game also makes liberal use of slippery terrain, making platforming unnecessarily difficult.
That One Boss: The second Doodlebob fight is a pain to beat, especially with the extra enemies spawned in the 2nd and 3rd phases of the fight. Prepare to lose a lot of lives.
That One Level: Here we have NoteLand. Holy crap, is this level a nightmare. The first part of the level is ok, minus some Gravity Screw. The second part isn't that bad, but don't let that fool you. It's the lasers in the third part that make the level so hard. The lasers, and the slippery ground.
from the first game sounds suspiciously similar to the refrain of Gusty Garden Galaxy