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»Honeycomb Beat
"Pu-*zzzz*-le, Pu-*zzzz*-le... ok, no."
The DS has had its fair share of puzzle titles – Meteos, Tetris DS,
Planet Puzzle League, Picross DS – all have been incredible and
essential to a quality DS collection. One of Konami’s most recent games
isn’t quite at that level of quality, but it’s certainly above
Polarium. That game is called Honeycomb Beat, and like many of the best
puzzle games, it is entirely controlled by the touch screen. Does it do
the other touch screen puzzlers justice? Well, yes and no.
The mechanics seem simple - deceptively so. There is a board of
“honeycombs”, which are puzzle pieces that form into a larger
honeycomb. The pieces are white and orange by default, although the
colors can be changed. When the player touches a honeycomb, this causes
it to flip from one color to another (i.e., orange to white). If there
are any surrounding honeycombs, they will flip, regardless of their
color. There are also “items” which are used to change the effect of
certain honeycombs by being placed on a certain honeycomb. For
instance, if an octagon-looking item is touched while in play, it will
only flip that one honeycomb. It adds a lot of strategy to the game,
and is really necessary to make it interesting. Besides the fact that
the idea is sound, the mechanics are pretty fun.
There are three modes of play: Tutorial mode, Puzzle mode, and
Evolution mode. Tutorial mode is just an explanation of the mechanics
of the Puzzle mode, and the Puzzle mode consists of turning all
honeycombs white. At first, they’re pretty simple, some taking only one
touch to clear. However, once you get into the later stages, it gets
fairly complex. The ultimate objective is to complete all of the
puzzles and to do it in as few turns as possible. What I like a lot
about Puzzle mode is that if you get stuck on one puzzle, no need to
fear – when the player clears a level, all surrounding levels are
opened up, giving the player multiple routes to try if the “primary”
route is too hard for the moment.
Finally, there is Evolution mode. This mode plays like a standard
“rising puzzle” game (i.e., Tetris Attack). To complete the levels, the
player must make one line (approx. six honeycombs wide) clear by making
it all one color, be it orange or white a certain number of times
(according to the minimum number of lines you have to clear). The game
rewards the player for not only clearing multiple lines at once, but
also building combos by ensuring that every line clear uses the same
color – so for instance, if the first clear is orange, clearing another
line will change the combo to x2 if it is also orange. Once the level
is cleared, the player is assessed by his or her score. So far, the
lowest I’ve gotten is a one-celled organism, and the highest I’ve
gotten is a fly. Biggest problem with this mode is that in the
beginning, it feels very complex and uncomfortable to play, while
later, you’re pretty much doing the same thing to clear a line instead
of trying anything original.
The visuals are on the same wagon as other stylish puzzle games –for
example, Lumines and Planet Puzzle League. It is fairly simple – on the
touch screen, there’s nothing more than honeycombs and menus. However,
the most interesting aspect of the visuals is the images on the top
screen. The player may choose from a variety of animated images, which
display interesting looking patterns and such (think Windows Media
Player’s ambience).
The sound isn’t quite so important to the game – while it’s a nice
feature that makes the game more entertaining, the game does not rely
on sound in any way besides making the experience more entertaining.
There is a wide selection of music the player can choose from, all of
which are really good, with one in particular being my absolute
favorite. The effect of having the images (see visuals paragraph)
change whenever you touch a honeycomb is a nice touch, although it
doesn’t seem perfect.
The game has a lot of potential for replay, just like any puzzle title.
However, it lacks that certain oomph to keep it lasting for too long.
It’s got the ingenuity, idea, and fun down, but even with the hidden
Endless mode, there isn’t enough variety to keep one playing a year
down the road. To its credit, they put in some neat unlockables – and
while some are neat, it just isn’t quite enough effort on their part.
Overall, Honeycomb Beat is a good effort, good idea, good gameplay, but
only decent execution. Too bad too – it looked cool.
Article by: Alttp
Posted on: Jun. 14th, 2007 |
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Review Recap |
| Gameplay |
| An intuitive design – touching one “honeycomb” to flip it and any other “honeycombs” around it. It’d be better if it wasn’t so complicated at first, and then somewhat simple in the game’s traditional “rising board” puzzle mode. |
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Graphics |
| Nice stylish effect with no significant flaws, although somewhat simple. |
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Sound |
| The sound effects are cool, and there’s one song that really makes the game enjoyable. |
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Replay Value |
| Decent amount of unlockables, 150 different puzzles, ten levels of difficulty, that’s some good replay there – unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have the lasting value of other puzzle games on the DS. |
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