0
Review

Meteos (DS) Review

Advertisement

Japanese game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi has won legions of fans around the world in recent years, and not just for the infamous vibrating controller incident. His unique style of blending music and graphic art seamlessly into puzzle gameplay has wowed critics and gamers since his Dreamcast debut, Rez.

And while Lumines was the darling of the PSP launch, Meteos has achieved equal acclaim on DS. Does it live up to the hype? Read on and see.

Bejeweltris?

First things first; the story. It may seem odd for a puzzle game to have a grand plot, but Meteos goes for the full space opera deal. The evil planet Meteo has arrived in the galaxy, and is so pissed at being labelled an Eye of Sauron look-alike that it sets about destroying stuff.

The various other planets deploy spaceships called metamo arks to defend themselves, resulting in an apocalyptic battle of hellfire, brimstone and square blocks neatly arranged in rows and columns. Hey, no-one said it had to make sense.

The end result is a game which is fifty percent Tetris, forty percent Bejewelled and ten percent Mizuguchi quirkiness. Gameplay consists of using the stylus to move blocks up and down until at least three of the same colour line up. This launches all the blocks above them towards (and hopefully off) the top of the screen.

Like Tetris, you lose when the blocks stack up to the top, so gameplay consists of a frantic struggle to clear blocks off faster than new ones come tumbling down.

And thats it. Thats the entire control mechanic of Meteos. This game doesnt so much have a learning curve as a horizontal line. Obviously it would grow old fast if that was all the gameplay consisted of, so Q Entertainment have mixed things up by including different planets with different gravity conditions.

Advertisement

On a planet with the lowest gravity, launched blocks disappear instantaneously. With heavier gravity, they may begin to fall again, and require more blocks to be launched beneath them to reach the top. Also, various items can be unlocked which appear randomly and help destroy blocks.

Super Smash Bros Meteos?

Meteos features a fairly comprehensive array of game modes, and an extensive bonus content system. The game tracks how many blocks of each type you have launched, and these can then be used to purchase planets, items and sound galleries.

While the gameplay is radically different, the presentation is eerily similar to Super Smash Bros Melee, from the item options right down to the exhaustive stats page. This is not a bad thing, but I found it a little disconcerting. The Time War mode seems like it could have been directly inspired by Smash Bros wireframe melees.

Mizuguchi games are known primarily for their distinct visual and aural style. And while Meteos is no exception, you can tell hes struggled to adapt his ideas to a technically weaker system than hes been used too. To put it bluntly, this game would barely push a Gameboy Advance to its limits, let alone the DS.

Advertisement

So when alls said and done, is Meteos any good? Well, yes it is. But dont believe the hype. In the humble opinion of this reviewer at least, it is a decent action puzzler. It has plenty of content, but it also has the word simple written all over it. While simple can be a good thing, in truth there was nothing here to hold my attention beyond a few hours of play.

Graphics 6.0

Gameplay 7.0

Sound 7.0

Tilt 5.0

Value 6.0

Our Verdict
Our Rating
User Rating
Rate Here
Overall
Our Rating
User Rating
You have rated this
What's your reaction?
Awesome
0%
Oh wow!
0%
Great
0%
Fresh
0%
Hmm
0%
Disappointing!
0%
Grrrr
0%
About The Author
Ian Casey

You must log in to post a comment