 Review By: Jared Black |
Developer: | Success |
| Publisher: | Ignition Entertainment | |
| Genre: | Puzzle | |
| ESRB: | Everyone | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | N/A | |
| Accessories: | N/A | |
| Buy Now: |   |
You know Bejeweled, that extremely popular puzzle game available for anyone to play for free on the Internet? Well, Zooo is essentially Bejeweled in portable form. Only given a wacky Japanese touch, filled with super-cute animals instead, and much more challenging.
Basically, the game board is an 8x8 grid filled with cute, cuddly animal tiles. It’s your job to swap adjacent animal tiles to form lines of three, thus wiping those animals off the board (and any combos that cascade downward as a result), earning points, and inviting new animal tiles into your den of matching. In this case it isn’t over if you run out of moves on the board as in Bejeweled, as the game simply loads up a new board to continue on. However, it is over if time experies. You also get several sets of binoculars that can be used to show all possible matches on a board, and from time to time a special tile pops up that wipes out all tiles matching whatever animal it’s stopped on. Thus if you’re smart (unlike me), you’ll learn early on that the special tiles are best saved for emergencies when time’s almost up since they wipe out so many tiles at once (thus giving your timer a big boost).
Speaking of which, the timer in this game starts out somewhat fast and quickly becomes really fast as you level up. Thus recognizing potential matches and combos requires quick thinking and real skill, which nicely rewards hardcore puzzle fans for their perseverance while remaining accessible to novices. Throw in playing on a GBA’s small screen and the way too similar dark pink rabbits and purple hippos on higher levels, and there’s definitely plenty of challenge here to keep you playing a while.
The different modes add a little variety, but ultimately you’re doing the same thing with a slightly different presentation. These modes include Normal, Tokoton, Score Attack, Time Attack, and Quest. Quest is the most unique, as it takes the player through a series of 8 timed challenges, such as collecting a certain number of a particular animal or scoring a combo, regardless of how many are successfully completed. In Tokoton the player levels up every time one hundred of a certain type of animal is collected, which usually means a long time without leveling at the beginning of the game followed by several intense times at once.
The graphics are cute, but simple. Full of primary colors and playful animal animations, Zooo is just cute enough to be charming without going overboard. However, the music is incredibly annoying, but fortunately it can be turned off in the options menu.
Bottom Line:
There's certainly nothing wrong with Zooo, but ultimately it's too repetitive to emerge as a standout in the already crowded puzzle genre. If you're looking for a different spin on Bejeweled or a puzzle game to play in short bursts, it's certainly worth a look though.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
|
|
6.5 |
Posted: 2005-10-29 11:13:58 PST