NOTE – Review score is listed as 2 stars, but I would actually rate it a 2.5 if I could.
It goes without saying that the video game industry has advanced quite a bit in the past few decades (yet here I am, saying it). And while most genres – action, sports, racing, fighting, etc. – have shifted from 2D to 3D, the puzzle genre has for the most part remained stubbornly in the former rather than the latter. SouthPeak Games attempts to break the mold with Roogoo: Twisted Towers for the Wii, a fully three dimensional offering in the puzzle genre, and the results are a bit of a mixed bag.
Twisted Towers is a falling blocks style of puzzle game with a twist (no pun intended): the blocks, or ‘meteors’ of different colors and sizes are falling in a 3D environment, and it’s up to the player to rotate the playing field- a series of layers/towers with shapes corresponding to the falling pieces – using the Wiimote and Nunchuk so that the blocks can fall all the way to the bottom. Early levels have you matching three different varieties of meteors, but eventually the game throws up to five different colors at you.
The core game is fun and starts off fairly easy. You soon discover the difficulty lies in the speed in which the meteors fall, outside factors such as bats and butterflies that will bring your blocks back up (you can grab them with the Wiimote by pointing it at the screen and grabbing them with a net you have available to you) and the occasional end-level boss fight, which are generally creative and challenging without making you pull out your hair.
Reminds you a bit of kindergarten, does it not?
There’s one other factor that affects difficultly, though it’s unlikely the programmers intended it to be so: the camera. The main reason puzzle games have remained steadfastly in a 2D environment is most likely because of the precision anyone playing a puzzle game would demand, and having to make split second decisions to correctly get the meteors through the right sized hole shouldn’t be made more difficult by a purposefully distant angle, a quick perspective shift, or piece of the game environment (such as the meteors themselves, which can grow long enough to block your view while they fall towards the ground). It feels like an artificial layer of difficulty that feels entirely out of your control and leads to many moments of frustration.
In addition to this, every few stages the game throws in a skydiving level in which Roogoo (I assume) is inexplicably falling and attempting to collect more meteor pieces while shooting down enemies and avoiding obstacles. It’s a nice enough diversion but it feels disconnected, less fleshed out and ultimately is less interesting the rest of the game.
In addition to “Story Mode” which has very little actual story to speak of (more on this in a minute) and can be played by one or two players (with the second player able to control the aforementioned butterfly/bat net), there are two multiplayer modes – a “Split Screen Race” mode in which players take on various stages of the story mode competitively against another player, and a “Party Play” mode that I wasn’t able to play but apparently allows up to four players to go through the game with alternating responsibilities. One last thing – if you happen to have the DS version of Roogoo, it looks like you can unlock some additional content in the game as well – what looks like one additional stage in each world.
One last thing I’ll mention that is maybe the most disappointing element of the game: it’s completely lacking charm. Having just finished another puzzle game (Professor Layton and the Curious Village), that created a wonderfully whimsical environment in which the ‘meat’ of the game takes place, I’m disappointed to see a game that is obviously aimed at a younger audience simply drop the ball on developing their characters or creating a fun world. What’s interesting is that the back of the instruction booklet shows off more personality than anything I saw in the game. Take a look:
Where's all this cutesiness in-game?
There’s none of this mentioned in the game itself. I saw one or two cutscenes completely lacking context, and that’s all. Why bother creating this character/world if it’s only mention on the back of the instruction booklet?
Roogoo: Twisted Towers feels like a half-formed idea that never really takes off. If you’re a die-hard puzzler looking for something different, I recommend checking it out. But be aware the novelty wears off fairly quickly, and there simply isn’t the level of depth a truly great puzzle game needs to sustain itself.
Gameplay video below (not from my time with it, but it’ll give you an idea of what the game looks like in action).
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