Review: Frenzic
Posted 04 Mar 2011 at 11:41 by Sam Gittins
DSiWare Review
"Visually the game looks acceptable for a puzzle title and isn't too shabby considering it's a downloadable title, though they very rarely go beyond the realms of remaining purely functional." |
After releasing several successful titles, including the excellent Toki Tori, expectations may well have been high for developer Two Tribes' next game, though they seem to have broken the cycle by porting an existing game from the iPhone instead of developing from scratch for the Wii console. Does this make the game any less enjoyable? To an extent yes but for a puzzle game with a mere 200 point price-tag it's actually not that bad at all, read on to find out why.
It starts out easy, something simple to ease you into the game as you are presented with six circles each of which are separated into six slices; individual pieces appear at the top of the screen and you have to choose where to put them. The object of the game is to fill each circle, giving you points, but the tricky part comes in when you realise that you get more points for having lots of the same colour and a whole extra life if you manage to fill a circle with only one colour.
There is no way to rotate the pieces so where you place the part is where it will stay leaving only a limited number of possibilities. You can concentrate on filling circles of the same colour but you might end up only filling the same spot in all circles, leaving no space for another slice of the same orientation for use in other circles so striking a balance seems to be the key to success. You can opt to hold a piece Tetris style but be wary of filling up identical slots as if you run out of time you'll end up losing a life.
Visually the game looks acceptable for a puzzle title and isn't too shabby considering it's a downloadable title, though they very rarely go beyond the realms of remaining purely functional. Audio is another story unfortunately as the repetitive tunes quickly get on your nerves after a short while so some variation could have been added here.
Sadly that's about it as the game offers nothing beyond its solitary mode of play, which is a shame because it feels like the game has so much more to potentially give but never gets a chance to deliver; the counterargument is that it is a cheap game but with other alternatives on offer for the same price it's hard to recommend. If you have nothing else to spend your points on though you could do a lot worse but just beware that the fun will not last that long at all beyond a few plays.
N-Europe Final Verdict
Frenzic is a solid puzzle game that promises a lot from its premise but fails to deliver due to lack of additional content, there is definite potential here for a more fully featured sequel.
- Gameplay4
- Playability4
- Visuals3
- Audio2
- Lifespan2
Final Score
6
Pros
Entertaining...
Original...
Cheap...
Cons
...If only for a short while
...but not enough to hold your interest
...yet lacking in content