feet training with personal trainer: walking

i wasn’t expecting a whole lot from personal trainer: walking for DS, but i was interested in seeing how it would compare to the very well-designed pedometer-related activities that are built into the 3DS. the game deserves credit for being the predecessor to the 3DS’s robust features, but although it feels like a distinct experience, it’s also a much shallower one.

the game’s main focus is to record the number of steps you’ve taken every day, but unlike the brain age games and wii fit, there’s no sense of trying to steadily “improve”. the designers attempted to solve this by measuring your “life rhythm” instead, but the lack of a self-improvement motivator proves to be critical and the game suffers from not having a similar built-in sense of progression. as a trade-off the game does a decent job of instead emphasizing the communication aspects: the game comes with two “activity meters”, and the daily reports replay the number of steps recorded at each moment of the day, which does succeed in encouraging conversation among people using the same cartridge. there’s really not much outside of the core measurement and the various charts that you can view, though. in the only other mode of significance you basically spend the steps you’ve walked to unlock useless factoids about subjects ranging from whales to tomatoes, which is about as exciting as it sounds. the game does have the added feature of allowing you to track your dog’s steps (and the activity meters come with a clip so you can easily secure it to your dog’s collar), and it does have the distinction of being probably the only DS title in which you can create a mii (or import one from your wii system). the game also has some barebones wi-fi features, where, as with new super mario bros. 2‘s worldwide coin total, you can see what the total number of steps all players (apparently 111,279 people) have accumulated.

overall this is a fairly basic package, and with a bit more effort could have been slightly more worthwhile. as it is, i lost interest in logging my steps pretty quickly, although, somewhat surprisingly, my partner found it more entertaining for longer (probably b/c he liked showing off how much more he walks than i do). the game is slightly less of a curiosity than the DSiware title sleep clock: record and analyse your sleep patterns (which was never released in north america), but not by much, but it’ll be interesting to see how the upcoming wii fit u‘s activity meter compares.

train your feet with these personal trainer: walking links:
- official site. includes an iwata asks feature
- the game comes with two activity meters, but the cartridge can hold data for up to 4. you can buy additional meters for $14.95 each at nintendo’s online store.
- if you’re curious about the animals you can get compared to in the game, see this thread at gamefaqs. apparently if you walk a ton in one day you can get compared to a pegasus, haha.
- overview at nintendo.com
- the game wasn’t widely reviewed when it came out, but here’s a review at nintendolife.com
- entry at wikipedia

yoshi to the rescue in yoshi touch & go

with the exception of the brilliant first title, so far i’ve found the yoshi series to be fairly lackluster. on the surface the next entry on the list to tackle, yoshi touch & go for DS, looked like it was going to be an even shallower experience. unlike the previous three games which are all essentially platformers, this one’s an arcade-style game that features the typical variations, including score attack, time attack, marathon, and vs. modes.

the game was released just a few months after the DS’s debut, and it was clearly designed to show off the new hardware’s dual-screen, touchscreen, as well as microphone capabilities. each mode has two sections: one in which baby mario slowly drops from the sky to the ground and you trace clouds to guide him to safety, and the other in which yoshi, in a more typical platformer fashion, carries baby mario horizontally, swallowing enemies and fruit and chucking eggs to clear a safe path and rack up points. both sections, especially the second, prove to be surprisingly robust, and once you get into the groove you can last for quite a long time in the endless marathon modes, although it doesn’t seem like the difficulty increases noticeably as you proceed within a playthrough. the game does provide a nice balance between the benefits of conserving eggs vs. using them up in order to reach a higher score, and unlike warioware: touched! it’s enjoyable even now, years after the novelty of touchscreen mechanics has worn off.

it’s surprising how enjoyable the game is. although it has only a few modes it will take you some time to beat all the default high scores, and by that time you may have become addicted to the simple but tactile gameplay. it’s unusual to see such a straightforward arcade-style game such as this, which makes it a somewhat refreshing experience. it would’ve been interesting to see the mechanics applied to an entire platformer game, but i suppose that niche was more ably filled by the excellent kirby: canvas curse. despite its modest offerings the game was fairly well-received by critics when it was released, and although i wouldn’t say it’s one of my favorite games ever, it’s definitely one of the more compelling entires in the yoshi series that i’ve played so far.

yoshi’s rescued these yoshi touch & go links:
- FAQ/walkthrough
- positive review at videogamecritic.com
- craig harris’s glowing review at IGN
- entry at mariowiki.com
- entry at wikipedia

pared-down party with tetris party live

continuing my streak of only playing handheld games, i spent some time with the random copy of tetris party live for DSiware (released in november of 2010) that i had. the game is apparently a very pared-down version of the wiiware release (which came out two years earlier) and the retail releases for wii and DS. although the game is no longer available for download on the 3DS or DSi (apparently due to the publisher’s license expiring), the wiiware version is still available and used copies of the wii and DS versions seem readily available as well.

the main draw to all the games that preceded the DSiware version, aside from the core classic tetris gameplay, seems to have been the additional modes, which are described in the entry on wikipedia and include an intriguing version featuring the wii balance board. this version, however, feels extremely basic. there’s the typical # of lines to clear mode (in this case 150), a marathon mode, and vs. CPU modes (which feature a much more superhuman AI than is found in other games), and although the game controls perfectly well, the presentation lacks character and doesn’t leave much of an impression other than being serviceable, with the exception of a cameo appearance of milon from milon’s secret castle as a selectable icon (the games were developed by hudson).

the game also includes two wi-fi vs. modes with friends or strangers. these provide the package with the only variations to the standard gameplay. one of the vs. modes features items that hinder your opponents such as not letting them rotate their pieces, while the other is the “Duel Space challenge where you try to drop down blocks in an effort to take up the most area on the playing field”. i didn’t get to try out the latter b/c no one online seemed to want to play that mode, but i was able to get paired up with three other players for the regular vs. mode pretty quickly.

all in all a fairly disposable rendition of a classic game, and one that doesn’t offer as much variety as nintendo’s own release for DS or even its sibling games. i’m intrigued enough by the descriptions of the other modes to give them a try, especially considering that there were no other versions of the game released for wii, but if you were curious about what you missed out on with the DSiware release, the answer is pretty clearly: not a thing.

party with these tetris party live links:
- review at nintendolife.com
- official site for this series of games
- in case you haven’t already seen it, video of human tetris

puzzlin’ through glow artisan

it seems like i’ve only been playing handheld games this year (esp. downloadable ones), but i’ve been busier than usual and have a couple of longer games that are taking time to finish. although it may make for less varied blog material, i rather like playing shorter games, although in general i’ve also been much less compulsive about finishing games if i know that i’ve seen everything it has to offer.

in this particular case, i recently finished glow artisan which is downloadable but like other puzzle games is virtually limitless in the amount of extra content via its level-creation features. the game had gotten great reviews on both nintendolife and ngamer, so i got the DSiware version that was released in december 2009 (although in retrospect it looks like the iphone version is $2 instead of $5 and essentially identical).

the game is very much in the same vein as picross and sudoku. in this game, however, instead of numbers the focus is on coloring squares in a certain order to make the target pattern. you can remove an entire row or column and colors mix in the way you would expect, but although the mechanics are simple it soon becomes apparent that the developers, powerhead games, have come up with a very clever puzzle system that is as robust as picross and sudoku. like both of those games, however, glow artisan has the same drawback which is that once you’ve mastered the mechanics there’s not a whole lot of variety and, for me at least, the lure of earning medals (for completing a level in the fewest moves possible) isn’t compelling enough to keep playing through all the stages. the game features an electro-chic exterior that has become the norm for puzzle games (and which frankly i’ve gotten quite bored with) and it includes a slew of tacked-on multiplayer features, but otherwise this is a good release for anyone craving a completely solid, if not surprising, puzzle game.

puzzle through these glow artisan links:
- developer’s official site
- apparently the game is available on other platforms, including windows phone and XBLA. here’s the list of XBLA achievements.
- the free version on itunes includes the first 12 levels, making it useful as a demo version

stay off of a kappa’s trail

i’m in the middle of a long game, so i spent a few hours this week plowing through the end of a game that i was glad to see finished off, a kappa’s trail, for DSiware. the game was highly recommended by nintendo power, so i thought i would try it out. it was developed by brownie brown, most known for the japan-only magical vacation and its DS follow-up magical starsign. the game’s warm, hand-drawn aesthetic is also highly reminiscent of the layton series, which the company also contributed to (namely, the fourth installment).

to me the game feels like a classic case of the early DS days, a time when less thoughtful developers assumed they could make a game worth playing by merely replacing button controls with clumsy touchscreen actions. the game came out more than 5 years after the DS debuted, though, which really gives it little excuse for how boring the gameplay is. in the game you draw out the main character’s path (a cute koopa who is trying to reach the human world). this in and of itself isn’t too bad, but since you have no control over how fast he goes it gets to be supremely annoying when you’re trying to maneuver blindly over series of moving platforms that move exactly as fast as he can walk, leaving you no room for error and a lot of stupid deaths. similarly, because changing the view and attacking objects and enemies are also controlled by the touchscreen instead of buttons, all too often you end up unintentionally sending the hero careening into a pit or other hazard. even worse are the cases where you have to draw a path for the character, move the screen to another area to perform an action such as lighting a lightbulb, and then immediately try to move the screen back. all of these complaints could be countered by arguing that they’re part of what makes the game challenging, but the majority of the time i felt i was struggling with the game’s controls and decidedly not enjoying the game itself.

in addition to the touchscreen actions, following behind the protagonist is the “devil hand” which tries to catch up with and capture our little kappa. this has potential for being an interesting mechanic but just feels annoying, as you end up having to trace circuitous routes to avoid it. again, an unenjoyable game mechanic that superficially adds to the game’s difficulty.

continuing my diatribe, the game also has hidden mini-kappas to find, some of which are optional, but finding them is a matter of literally completely covering every possible patch of every stage’s ground. completely pointless and boring. adding to my annoyance is the fact that you have to exit the stage to buy continues and to unlock the game’s three mini-games you have to find a special item within the stages, without any guide as to where they are. the first mini-game (the only one i found) is also extremely poorly thought out. it’s a puzzle game somewhat like the far more enjoyable polarium and others like it where you have to trace a line for the kappa to follow that touches particular tiles in a certain order. in a “what the heck where they thinking?” move, the developers have put a time limit on each level, consisting of four stages. what’s the point of being able to quickly solve the puzzle? invariably you’ll get stuck on the last one and will have to replay the first three again and again to finish the set.

clearly my annoyance with this game makes it rank low on my master list. although the hand-drawn presentation gives the game a nice feel, the experience throughout is marred by host upon host of irritating design decisions. i’m fairly astounded that anyone would have enjoyed this game, but maybe there are people with $5 to burn who have much more patience and tolerance for finicky controls and tired mechanics than i.

stay on these a kappa’s trail links:
- official site
- entry at nintendo.wikia.com with info on the cameos, including one by captain rainbow
- entry at wikipedia
- in case you’re wondering why your kappa is so fat from eating fish in the hub stage here’s the tip on how to gain new sea creatures to your hub

minor evolutions in pokemon black and white

for my first game of 2013 i finally finished up pokemon black for DS. although the critics generally seemed to be excited about the newest edition, i’ve taken a much more skeptical view of the amount that the series evolves between releases, and so my expectations weren’t too high. although i did like the fact that they created a whole new roster of 150+ pokemon for the main part of the game, many times the differences felt fairly minor. does it really matter if the bats in the caves are swoobats rather than zubats or that instead of geodudes there are boldores? but there were enough new type combinations (such as joltik, a new bug + lightning type) that it did feel like the designers were making an effort to expand the universe.

another area that people praised was the more-serious story of a crusader trying to free all pokemon from their enslavement. maybe i just didn’t take it seriously enough, but this new type of story didn’t draw me in at all and it didn’t feel much better than the usual “team rocket wants to take over the world” storylines. another of the main new features was the 3-on-3 battles and the rotation battles. these did help shake things up a bit, but they didn’t happen that often and so didn’t force you to focus on designing your team for those types of battle. which was fine by me, since i usually just create a team and stick with it through to the end.

the graphics are better than diamond and pearl (and features a lot of nice 3-D environments that will look great when the inevitable 3DS iteration of the series arrives), particularly in the battles which feel more dynamic due to the pokemon being slightly animated. the battles themselves are noticeably faster-paced than its predecessors with minimal time between messages. one major annoyance (spoiler alert) is the fact that to win the title of pokemon champion you have to battle the elite 4 twice, once to end the first part of the game, and the other after the last 1/3 of the map has opened up. i’d actually beaten the elite 4 the first time a couple of months ago but was really disheartened at having to keep playing to really call the game finished. there’s still a lot to do, though, and the last part of the game goes by without too much tedium. there’s a sidequest to track down the six sages (although it’s somewhat of a let-down that you don’t get anything for doing so, other than TMs), and there are a lot of high-level trainers to go up against, including cynthia (the champion from diamond and pearl) herself

[geeky aside: for those interested, my final 5 consisted of conkeldurr, serperior, chandelure, vanilluxe, and garbodor. the three who had second abilities all didn't have my choice (e.g. conkeldurr had guts instead of sheer force), and oftentimes their natures didn't help much either. serperior was as solid as you'd expect a starter to be, and conkeldurr ended up being a key player with its high physical attacks and HP. garbodor and chandelure were pretty solid, although vanilluxe was fairly weak and had terrible defense.]

another annoyance was that to “see” all 154 pokemon (152 plus victini and keldeo) of the unova pokedex you have to jump through some hoops, namely: train a couple of the pokemon yourself (namely to evolve ferroseed to ferrothorn and deino to zweilous) since you never see a trainer who has them, hatch one (rufflet from breeding a braviary, who you have to get in a trade from pokemon white), and trade several others, although you can do so over wi-fi since they appear within the game (including zorua/zoroark, who was only available as an event pokemon). the most annoying part of completing your unova pokedex is that to catch the final legendary, landorus, you have to have a legendary from the other game of the pair (thundurus or tornadus). luckily i had a used copy of pokemon white that i was able to exploit, but this would be a much bigger problem for people who didn’t and didn’t want to play through the game twice. anyway, this helped me get high enough to beat alder and become the champion, so i guess i can’t complain too much that finishing seeing all the pokemon takes more effort than it did in D/P.

one other annoyance is that pokemon white has an advantage over black b/c the unique area it includes (the white forest vs. black’s city) has pokemon you can catch in it, whereas there are no wild pokemon in the black city. this seems unfair to owners of pokemon black, and i haven’t seen any advantage that black has over white that would counterbalance it.

despite my complaints, this was a perfectly fine, if not revolutionary, entry in the series. what really made the game more enjoyable, though, were the accompanying “games” that enhanced the experience. although the pokemon games have had spin-offs since the game boy color days and the pokemon global terminal website was created to complement D/P, the pokemon global link and pokedex 3D felt fresh. the former provides the same ability as the global terminal did to see trades and various useless stats such as the country that spends the most time fishing in the games, but the global link is much more integrated into the games themselves.

the global link’s dream world provides a way to catch older-generation pokemon from early on in the game with unique abilities (via generally entertaining minigames), and also moves the berry-planting and secret base features out of the games and into the website. this actually turns out to be a great design decision since you can focus your game-playing time on exploring the game world and your time away from your game with more casual activities (well, relatively speaking anyway), and plus you can send items from the dream world back to your game as well. the game developers have tied decorating your house with the number of berries you’ve harvested, and collecting all the different types of berries via trades in the dream world is a fun diversion. i’ve gotten somewhat addicted to collecting all the available pokemon dolls (as you can see in the out-of-date screenshot of my dream world house).

pokedex 3D is less “essential”, but also makes for a very nice diversion. athough the info on evolutions, movesets, and move descriptions, can all be found online, it’s great to see the pokemon in 3D instead of as sprites (previously only seen on console games such as stadium and colosseum and the cartoons), not to mention actual 3D via the 3DS’s unique glasses-free feature. the app tried to play up the trading aspect of pokemon in order to unlock more of your pokedex, but it was more of an inconvenience than an enjoyable task. the app also tried to play up its AR aspects, which i mostly ignored for the same reasons that i ignored the character and mii features of AR games. but in general this was a nice complement to the black and white games: even though it was free it would’ve been worth a few bucks at least. i don’t think i have the need to shell out $15 for the pro version, that features all the pokemon, but knowing me i’m sure i will eventually.

i seem to be saying this a lot, but all in all gen V of pokemon wasn’t revolutionary but had just enough that was new (particularly in its two complementing games) to make it worthwhile. i have zero interest in playing their “sequels” black 2 and white 2 since despite claims they still seem to be more remix than evolution, but hopefully the next generation will actually offer something truly new. hopefully!

minor evolutions in pokemon black and white links:
- bulbapedia continues to be my main resource for all thing pokemon. here’s the link to the page on black and white.
- whenever i play a new pokemon game i often end up reading about training stats and all that, but i never get into it much. but it’s kind of fun to read about effort values and EV yields.
- the comprehensive tier ranking and strategies at smogon university are also interesting to read and i’m sure could be a huge time suck if you got into it. i find that i learn something new every time i dip into it, such as about rarer pokemon like shedinja who apparently has only 1 HP. yes, i know i’m far from being a pokemon master.
- tidbits from junichi masuda’s (the director’s) twitter on the character called “N”
- review at nintendolife.com
- funny connection between munna and the very first pokemon game
- battle tips and original concept art for zoroark and tepig from officialnintendomagazine.co.uk
- entry on wikipedia

number battle comes up trumps

i bought an issue of the UK magazine ngamer, which, like nintendo power, is soon to be defunct. along with the eye-cathing design, the publication is alluring to fans of lists like myself because in every issue they publish the top 25 or 50 games for every nintendo platform, with the opportunity for entries to be replaced based on reader response. in their top 10 games for dsiware they had included sujin taisen: number battles, released as number battle in the US. the game is by mitchell corp., who were also behind the enjoyable magnetica and polarium, both on DS. number battle easily trumps both games and has jumped to the top of my list of favorite DSiware games yet.

the game is often described as scrabble with numbers, but the gameplay recalls number-matching and sequence-based games like rummy and poker. the core mechanics are simple to pick up on and rock solid and provide an excellent balance of strategy and risk without involving too much luck and requires a blend of both defensive and offensive tactics. although items are part of the gameplay, they’re better integrated and aren’t generally complete game changers the way that items in games like mario kart are.

the single-player campaign is excellent and well paced and once you’ve mastered the mechanics there are gold medals to earn as well as a puzzle mode that will further finesse your abilities. of course the single player mode is by its nature limited since it pits you against computer-controlled opponents (who only in the latest levels really try to interfere with your strategy): human opponents (especially if you were able to find enough to have a 4-player game) would really turn this excellent experience into an essential one. i ripped through the game in just a few (rather long) sittings, and i found myself wishing the game had the same unlockable hard modes as the retail version which was only released in japan. i’m definitely going to be importing that game if i can find a copy, and hopefully will find some opponents to battle over wi-fi at some point as well.

all in all despite some fairly generic and unmemorable feudal-japan-style trappings and presentation this was a lot of fun and great game that deserves more attention. definitely one of my favorite games i’ve played this year.

try and trump these number battle links:
- review at nintendolife.com
- official page at nintendo.com
- fansite for the original DS release
- entry at wikipedia
- entry at metacritic
- user review at gamefaqs

jump, presto! in maestro! jump in music

nintendolife.com has been a great resource since i first came across it, esp. for downloadable games that tend to get short shrift in other publications. i’ve been giving more attention to DSiware games lately, and nintendolife had given maestro! green groove an unusually high score so i thought i’d check it out. rather than download the truncated DSiware version, though, i opted for importing a copy of the original, only-released-in-europe DS version, entitled maestro! jump in music, since it looked like a rhythm game that i would enjoy spending some time with (FYI, i snagged a cart-only copy for less than $10 on ebay but i may have just gotten lucky).

the game is part of a growing sub-genre of rhythm games that match auto-scrolling platforming actions such as jumping and attacking enemies to a musical accompaniment. the game’s main control is novel: you steer the pink bird presto by plucking the string he’s running along up or down; stroking downwards moves him down a string, and stroking upwards makes him jump. the retail game is still fairly short: each of the 6 worlds is divided into three standard levels and a boss level. each world introduces a new mechanic (many of which, such as the circular spinning motions and tapping when circles overlap, will be familiar to fans of the elite beat agents (aka ouendan) games). the majority of the tracks are classical tunes in fairly decent and pleasant-enough MIDI arrangements, and similarly the graphics are cartoony and serviceable despite being fairly simple. the game requires you to beat all of the levels on easy before unlocking the normal and hard difficulties, but the levels are shorter than on the harder difficulties so the easy mode goes by quickly and gives you a chance to master the game’s mechanics. (the harder modes also let you sing along to jump instead of swiping, which is a mildly entertaining if not particularly practical gimmick.) the game’s biggest weakness is the boss battles. in these levels the game switches to a very basic “simon says”-type of gameplay that drag on and don’t add anything new to the genre let alone this experience.

although i enjoyed the game enough to play through the easy and normal levels, i hesitate to recommend the DSiware version since for $5 it only includes the first world (three levels + a boss fight) and replaces one of the best songs of the game, “our house”, with another classical tune (by chopin). if you’re not able to get a copy of the original or if you want to try a bite-sized chunk before committing to the full release this should be a good alternative, but i’m glad that i made the investment and went with the full release. not one of the standout games i’ve played this year, but an enjoyable rhythm game and probably the best use of classical music in a game that i’ve seen yet.

jump through these maestro! jump in music links:
- review of the DSiware release at nintendolife.com
- apparently there was/is an iphone version, but i haven’t been able to find it in the itunes store nor find much info about it online. here’s a link that has some info about that version.

shuffling through away: shuffle dungeon

i mentioned that nintendo power is going to be soon shutting down, but it’s been a great way of finding out about games that i would’ve otherwise overlooked. one such example was away: shuffle dungeon for DS. i first heard about it in a preview in the magazine, and although it received only average reviews i thought i’d give it a try since i’m always interested in games that seem to be trying something new (not to mention that you can get it pretty cheap nowadays and that it has some major names attached to it, including final fantasy grandfather himself, hironobu sakaguchi).

the aesthetics of the game make it feel reminiscent of phantom hourglass (which preceded it by almost a year and a half) and animal crossing. the core of the game has you making your way through split-screen dungeons where the top or bottom half shuffle every few seconds. the gameplay is certainly novel, and although the creators did try to add new elements in each new dungeon, the core gameplay just isn’t interesting enough to sustain the whole game. getting caught in a shuffle sends you back to the beginning of the floor and gets to be an annoyance, but you’ll soon learn to play cautiously and wait for the area you need to shuffle back into view instead of risking a heedless dash to a switch or treasure chest or exit. the combat is simplistic and the powerups are minimal (they take the form of four creatures called “fupongs” that you train up that provide fire, ice (shield), lightning, and healing powers), so that aspect of the gameplay also wears thin. there are a few boss battles that shift from the 2-d dungeon crawling into a 3-d perspective, and they provide a nice break, although each boss is repeated (understandable, given the limitations of the hardware). the regular enemies are repetitive, and although the dungeon visuals aren’t fancy they work well, and the music throughout is consistently good.

part of what kept me playing, though, aside from the need to finish the game, was the story’s potential. the bulk of the story has you rescuing villagers one by one from each of the game’s many dungeons, and each opens up a different shop varying in usefulness. the characters have a boxy, mysims-like design but are otherwise personable enough, and the game includes short audio clips for each character that help bring them to life. (the game also features a good amount of nicely animated cut scenes.) from reviews i had read on gamefaqs it sounded like the story was going to develop into unusual directions once all the villagers had been saved. the story does develop in a fairly unique and more-or-less satisfying way, although not enough to distract from the repetitive dungeon-crawling of the last half of the game.

it’s nice to take a break from just playing nintendo-published games (something i’m trying to do more of), and i appreciated the game’s attempts to try something new. although the game dragged on for me it has a polished presentation that makes it enjoyable overall for at least a partial playthrough.

shuffle through these away: shuffle dungeon links:
- official site, includes trailers and screenshots
- this guy posted about the game as he played through it, which is the closest thing to a walkthrough that you’ll find online (although be aware that it reveals all the spoilers about the story)
- page at rpgamer.com, has some promo artwork
- entry on wikipedia
- i never did find out what the hammer was for, but here’s the info on what the horn shell and whale whisker (which i never came across) are for
- information on the game is scarce, but if you’re wondering how to cycle between fupongs just use the L and R buttons

balanced might & magic: clash of heroes

i’m always on the lookout for a good puzzler, and might & magic: clash of heroes for DS had gotten good reviews. the game is apparently tied into the might & magic series, which i know nothing about, but the setting had all the typical generic fantasy trappings including demons, elves, and necromancers. although the setting and story leave something to be desired, the game’s core puzzle mechanics are pretty solid.

in the un-timed, turn-based battles you move pieces between columns in order to form groups of 3, with bonus moves given for achieving groups of five (three vertical and three horizontal) and chains. vertical groups provide attacks, while horizontal groups provide defense in the form of walls. in addition, pieces can be combined with more powerful pieces in order to launch stronger attacks. the game is so carefully balanced that there is virtually no advantage or disadvantage between favoring an offensive vs. defensive strategy; similarly, choosing to use many smaller attacks instead of building up a stronger attack is almost as equally balanced. one of the main things that keeps the game interesting is that each of the game’s five sections features different protagonists, and each protagonist has a different set of pieces. the first protagonist (an elf) has walls that can regenerate and deer that can jump over walls, while the second protagonist (a knight) has walls with higher defense and a priest who can restore health every turn. each character also has a unique special move that can be unleashed after a certain amount of damage has been given/taken.

although it was interesting to get acquainted with each of the sets of pieces, by the third chapter the similarities were so outweighing the differences that i had to stop. although balance is usually a good thing in a puzzle game, in this case the game is so well balanced that no matter what strategy you adopt you can still win. this lack of risk and reward makes the game curiously dull and predictable once the core mechanics have been mastered, and rounds tend to drag on because attacks are set to a number of turns until they activate and stronger attacks take longer to activate. the game tries to tack on RPG-like elements (somewhat like puzzle quest, a game that it is often compared to) by letting you choose which pieces to bring into battle, having them level up after battles, including items that provide minor bonuses, and including a map with fixed points that you navigate through to advance the story, talk to NPCs, and take on optional battles for coins to buy extra pieces, but none of these trappings distract from the slowness of the main puzzle mechanics for long. boss battles and the occasional mission battle with different objectives do provide a nice change of pace, and i found the optional puzzle modes included in the story mode to be much more worthwhile than in the usual puzzle game.

while i started off being completely addicted to the game, once i mastered the mechanics my interest dried up pretty quickly. not one of the greatest puzzle games, but a fairly solid diversion, at least for a while.

balance these might & magic: clash of heroes links:
- a pair of useful FAQs at gamefaqs
- entry at wikipedia