For Nintendo eShop
| Pros: | Cons: |
| Brilliant art style and 3D effects | Re-used backgrounds and music |
| Tons of puzzles and you can create your own | Weird platforming gameplay |
| Basic gameplay and controls works well | |
Pushmo marks the first time that I purchased a game based on its review score. Before now I have always predetermined buying a game because it was a part of my favorite game franchises or I have received it as a gift. I’ve seen on many gaming sites reviews for Pushmo and they all seemed to point me the same direction: so I dropped everything and downloaded the game the other day, and I sure was pleased.
Similar to other Nintendo games, Pushmo’s visuals look childish, cartoony, juvenile, and colorful. To some the game may appear like a kid’s game, then I guess it’s a good day to be a kid. Pushmo’s graphics are for all ages and I was pleased by the game’s art style. Mallow, the main character, looks fantastic and I love the animation of him walking across the playfield. The blocks themselves are colorful and varied in shape and size, and the touch screen relays a map of the puzzle (which sometimes the icons on the map are so small you can hardy make out what they are). The 3D effect is great: at first it appears as a nice visual touch until you try turning the 3D off in which the game looks terrible. The point is that you absolutely cannot play this game with the 3D off, it’s impossible as you often cannot tell what layer a block is pulled into. My only real complaint about the visuals is the fact that the background on each stage is the same. Why not include various themed stages like one in a cave, one with the sunset, one at night, one in a jungle, etc. The same background eventually becomes old and more variety would’ve been nice.
The game doesn’t exactly stand out when It comes to audio, nor should it. The sound effects are basic and actually sound nice and cheery and set the mood well. There isn’t much variety when it comes to the music in the game as there are only a handful of themes and they all sound pretty much the same. More music tracks and a better variety of them would have been appreciated although the game sounds good enough without them. Perhaps a spooky sounding theme to compliment a cave background for a puzzle?
The game’s concept and execution are solid and the main gameplay is a perfect fit for 3D. Nearly all the puzzles are well designed including the cool murals which helps to add some variety. The game jumps back and forth in difficulty sometimes throwing easy puzzles at you just to throw an extremely difficult puzzle at you next. The ability to skip a puzzle is nice but if you keep your mind to the task you’ll eventually solve the puzzle and it always feels satisfactory to finally get to the goal. A hint system for the more challenging puzzles would have been appreciated and would’ve kept many headaches of mine away. The game’s rewind button is a fantastic addition and is fun to use I only wish it rewinded faster as sometimes it takes a while to rewind. While I like the use of platforming in this game there were some instances in which I felt like I was cheating by using a certain kind of jump, and there were others where I kept trying to reach a spot that apparently was impossible to reach by jumping. Some of the platforming areas seemed like they distracted me from the puzzle itself. Creating puzzles works well enough and the touch screen is a perfect home for such a task. You can easily test your puzzle and assign it a difficult rating as you see fit. Sharing your puzzle via a QR code is simple and like always the 3DS has no difficult reading the code. The puzzle-platforming hybrid of gameplay is fun albeit with some faults here and there as with the rest of the game.
The game includes tons of puzzles to play and solve, plus you can create your own with the custom puzzle builder. As far as sharing abilities go, QR codes is a nice ability, but I would have liked to download new puzzle via SpotPass and StreetPass support would’ve been nice as well. The game will last an adequate amount of time nonetheless but some additional sharing options would have been nice.
The controls are as you would imagine pretty much flawless. The circle pad moves Mallow as it should, but I sometimes felt that he moves kind of on the slow side. The actions such as rewinding, pulling, pushing, and jumping all work well too. Not really too much to say about the controls in a game like this.
Pushmo is a fun puzzle game that will pull you in with its cute graphics, its innovative gameplay, and its plentiful challenges. Although I can’t say it’s perfect: there are some problems after all, I can say that it is one of the best puzzle games I’ve ever played. I’m not a huge puzzle-genre fan so maybe I didn’t enjoy this as much as others, but I don’t think it’s an amazing game just a good one. I didn’t find Pushmo to be as good as my expectations based on online reviews, but I was nonetheless happy I purchased this game anyways. For puzzle game fans I recommend this game fully, otherwise choose carefully.
| Graphics: Impressive 3D effects, great character models, more backgrounds needed 9.5 |
| Audio: Minimal sound effects and music variety but not exactly needed either 8.5 |
| Gameplay: Great puzzle designs work well with 3D, platforming segments are unusual 9.0 |
| Gameplay Amount: Tons of puzzles plus make your own and share via QR, no SpotPass 9.0 |
| Controls: Circle pad controls Mallo well, rewind, jump, and pull buttons work well 9.5 |
| Overall: Good concept and execution make for a recommendable puzzle game 9.0 |
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