In this review, we slide around in the Game Boy Advance game Denki Blocks! We find out how well this puzzle game plays.
This game was released in 2002 and is one of a number of ports.
The main story is that you arrived at Denki island. This is populated by people who build Denki block puzzles. Your goal is to climb the ranks to be the best at Denki Blocks.
Puzzles generally have a field of squares. They have two kinds of blocks on them: blockers and gum blocks. Blockers are fixed blocks on the board. They don’t move and stop moving blocks in their tracks. Gum blocks, meanwhile, can be moved around. The goal is to get all the gum blocks that match the goal lights to stick together.
The puzzles are solved almost exclusively by the D-pad. When you press a direction, all the gum blocks on the board move one space in that direction. While blockers generally impede progress, they are often used as a tool to help the gum blocks move in a particular direction. You can “undo” a move with the “B” button, however, you can only go back one move. If you can’t solve the puzzle (which will happen a lot as you progress), then you need to pause the game and select “reset”.
The main mode is the tournament mode. You have a total of 8 ranks to climb up on. Each rank has to be earned in order. Each rank presents you a total of 25 puzzles. To advance to the next rank, you need to solve 15 of them. This means that if you can’t figure out one puzzle, skipping it is not the end of the world. Note that if you go back and solve all the remaining puzzles, you’ll unlock an additional 5 challenge puzzles for you to solve. This is, as far as we can tell, entirely optional.
Along the way, there are additional optional objectives you can try and get. Each puzzle keeps track of how many moves you make. You can try and beat the “par” moves for a special win.
Additionally, each puzzle is timed. Instead of trying to beat the number of moves, you can simply beat the “par” time as well.
One final bonus you can earn along the way is the “bonus” shape. On some puzzles (not all), there is a panel that shows a coloured shape. If you manage to not only solve the puzzle, but also get that shape with that particular colour, you’ll get a bonus star.
While you do have this mode, you have two other modes of play: Workout and Perfecto. Workout and Perfecto operate on a very simple grid. There is a blocker in the middle and a set number of gum blocks for you to solve. The goal is to recreate the goal shape.
In workout, you can set the number of gum blocks and the amount of time you are giving yourself. The goal is to solve as many puzzles as possible before the time runs out.
Meanwhile, Perfecto simply challenges you to solve the puzzle using the fewest moves possible. There is only one shape for you to get, so there isn’t a huge rush in this mode.
One thing about this game I like is the difficulty curve. It starts you out with very easy puzzles. This allows you to start getting your bearings in solving these puzzles. You might think to yourself that these puzzles are way too easy, but as you go up the ranks, the puzzles to become quite a bit harder. The difficult is gradual, but by the time you get to the last three ranks, you’ll be really challenged to solve the puzzles. Patience and problem solving skills are essential in this game.
Another thing I can appreciate is that there is a certain degree of novelty in this game. The puzzles do loosely resemble Sokoban style puzzles (Shove It! – The Warehouse Game and Boxxle are two examples we’ve seen). However, movement and object behaviour are much different.
The only pitfall is that this game does get frustrating after a while. There are a number of puzzles where you have to really be careful on your movements. This is because there are a number of different objects you have to pay attention to at the exact same time. If you forget about one small object on the puzzle for a brief moment, you could inadvertently render the puzzle unsolvable by accident.
Another problem is that this game isn’t really all that exciting in the long run. Once the novelty wears out, the longevity of this game can be quite limited. While there are additional optional challenges in the game, I’m not exactly motivated to really go for them to be honest.
Overall, there aren’t a whole lot of flaws to be had in this game. At the same time, it’s not exactly a super amazing game to get into either. The game features a good difficulty curve and a decent length. At the same time, later puzzles can be quite annoying more than challenging. Once the novelty wears off, it’s hard to get overly enthusiastic about this game. So, a decent all around game, but nothing particularly spectacular.
Graphics are pretty decent for an early Game Boy Advance game. There’s some decent artwork and well thought out environments to be had. My only real complaint is that there isn’t a good variety of characters to choose from for your avatar. You only have a choice between a black male and a white female. That’s it. Still, the different characters are nicely animated. So, decent all around.
Audio is OK. Music can lay on the upbeat nature of the overall game a bit thick. Still, the purple dragon you take on does have some pretty decent background music in the rankings mode. Sound effects are fairly basic. The game does not feature any voice samples which is a bit disappointing.
Overall, this game does feature a good difficulty curve, but longevity of this game is a bit iffy. Later puzzles can serve to annoy more than challenge. Graphics are decent and characters are nicely animated, but the number of avatars in the game can be quite limiting. Audio can be a bit overly upbeat, but it isn’t all bad. Still, no voice samples is a bit of a letdown. Overall, this is a decent game, but nothing to get overly excited over.
Overall
Furthest point in game: Solved 5 puzzles on the 8th ranking. Solved 5 puzzles in 1 minute on workout. Solved all the puzzles in Perfecto, though apparently, no scores were anything to write home about.
General gameplay: 19/25
Replay value: 5/10
Graphics: 7/10
Audio: 3/5
Overall rating: 68%
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
