Wiiloveit.com: Art Style Aquite

Art Style Aquite - DSiWare Review

THE FACTS: Art Style Aquite (AKA Azurio; Aquario; Aquia)
DSiWare | Nintendo | 1 Player | 500 Nintendo Points | Out Now

Reviewer: Billy White

Art Style Aquite is a great little puzzler that takes after Puzzle League. The aim is to move blocks left and right in order to get three or more of the same colour in a straight line. Once you do this, the blocks are destroyed and more blocks are added from the bottom of the screen. The twist here though, is that rather than play across your average grid, you play on a tall vertical one, that is only three blocks wide. The idea here, is that you use the D-pad to move a block of two colours up or down the column, and pressing the A button will push the block into the grid. Once you do this though, another block will pop out of the other side, so you have to re-insert it somewhere else in the play area.

It's not the easiest of puzzlers if you're not an experienced gamer, mainly due to the speed that you have to play at. As you play through a level, a black shadow will dawn across the screens, and when it reaches the bottom, the game ends. As you destroy or chain together more blocks though, the shadow will move back slightly, prolonging the game length. The level ends once you've destroyed enough blocks for the diver on the right hand side of the screen to reach the bottom.

There is a bit more variety to it as well, in the form of different blocks. Some rare blocks will send the shadow back to the beginning, and some blocks will only be removed from the game if an adjacent block is destroyed. It might all sound a bit complicated at once, but after about ten minutes play, you'll have come to terms with the basic gameplay and you'll be destroying blocks like mad, so it's a good thing that twenty levels of increasing difficulty are included, alongside an endless mode.

Another nice touch is the aquarium mode which allows you to view relaxing underwater animations for each level (although sadly, only on the top screen), and the options to play the game with differently shaped blocks (2x2 squares and a pair of horizontal colours are available on the menu). The only thing that lets this game down are the poor, low quality aesthetics, which are filled with repeating sounds that will give you a headache, and graphics that feel very samey throughout. It isn't the most attractive game in the world either but it has the simple "Art Style" feel which works pretty well. The presentation certainly won't be for everyone though, so thank goodness for the addictive gameplay which will certainly keep you going back for more.

23/30 - Very Good

Gameplay 9 - Very well designed and addictive | Presentation 6 - It's Art Style. 'Nuff said | Enjoyment 4 - You'll always want more | Other - 4 A good package

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