If you came for more DtL like on the DS, do NOT play this game. I made the mistake of buying this game day one as someone who had this franchise very close to his childhood, and even after three years of waiting, they have not released ANY fixes to major bugs in this game (i.e. softlocking on loading/saving screens, major graphical bugs of missing characters or level assets, falling through the floor for no reason, etc.), nor its tedious and repetitive gameplay/visual style.

The true epitome of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Really strange. It is genuinely NOTHING compared to the previous two, particularly in scope. The gameplay sections are tiny puzzle platformer stages, that still control a fair amount like the previous, but are much smaller in scale. Similarly, the story follows on, and while it's technically the same characters, there's far less of a story being told. But, despite some questionable elements (especially the way it connects to the ending of The Next Chapter), the writing is more or less a match to the rest of the series, and the dialogue still reads like DtL dialogue.
The puzzle platforming gameplay was annoying at first, but I warmed up to it quickly. Outside of the main story missions, there are smaller stages where the goal is to get a high score. But to raise the score, you generally need to do things like knock down enemies, wait until they recover, and repeat. Racing through these levels to minimise time doesn't get much of a points bonus, so it's not worth it. So the playstyle that gets the most points is very inelegant, which I find more funny than anything else.
The difficulty increases gradually. In about half the levels, you need to choose where to place objects around the stage before starting. At the start of the game, it's easy enough to work out where to put them from a basic glance at the stage, but later on, experimentation becomes much more important.
Beyond the puzzling, when the objects have been placed appropriately, and you know exactly what to do, there's still a good amount of platforming to do. There's a good balance of puzzles and platforms.
Although there are definitely some identifiable routes that you are supposed to follow, there are generally several ways to complete each stage, many of which don't seem planned. It's very fun to try to exploit obstacles like that.
The "drawing" aspect is scaled back here compared to previous entries, but I never cared for it at all anyway, so I'm fine at least. The editor is as fleshed out as ever, but it's just not used for many items.

I really REALLY wanted to like this one. As soon as I saw the announcement that a new Drawn to Life was coming, my feet turned into rockets as I blasted myself to the moon.

Then I saw the trailer and, upon playing the game, it seems a few of my concerns leading up to the game came true. The music and art are on point as they capture the essence and charm of the original DS game perfectly, so much so I could feel the nostalgia coming like a ton of bricks. Even if the story doesn't seem interesting this time round, I was just glad to see the characters I grew up with as a kid again in all their glory.

Why oh WHY did they change the gameplay though? The gameplay is what made Drawn to Life what it is and while the original DS gameplay's platforming kinda sucked, I still loved the amount of meme potential that came out of whatever I could draw. The only things you draw to "bring to life" is your hero and things in the over world.

The gameplay this time round has been turned into some puzzle platformer where you place down toys, aka enemies, in order to reach the goal. For example you might be able to reach a higher place by jumping on an enemies head which is higher than your normal jump. As part of the story when someone is facing some kind of negativity, you pull out your "book of dreams" or something like that, get thrown into these mediocre platform levels (with random backgrounds) and then BAM, after completing it you have made them positive!
The gameplay and UI of the game made the experience feel like an average mobile puzzle game with Drawn to Life slapped on it (and ironically enough this was released for mobile). Even if the gameplay concept wasn't boring, I'd still feel disappointed because this isn't what drawn to life is about. It's about going on an adventure and drawing various things in the levels like platforms, tools, etc. The fact that you get thrown into random levels which look like different locations removes the immersion for me personally and is why I haven't went back to playing this game.

It's a big shame because I can feel a lot of passion went into making the music and the art, and I can tell they wanted to make something original. However, if you want to make an original game then don't make it a squeal to Drawn to Life. I wouldn't be this upset if they didn't advertise it as the "next installment" because this feels more like a spin off than a proper squeal. I have no problem with new features getting implemented to make a squeal more distinguishable but there is a difference between that and changing the gameplay entirely.

Overall, I'd only recommend for die hard Drawn to Life fans though keep your expectations low. I am heavily considering just watching the story on Youtube instead.