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Call it fate, call it karma... I believe everything happens for a reason. It was fate-slash-karma
that led me to reviewing pretty much the entire launch lineup of the NES. Who could’ve forseen
that the knowledge and understanding of early 80’s Nintendo releases would be so immediately
relevant! Here’s Art Style: PiCTOBiTS in all caps except the “i”s, an interesting,
innovative, and fast-paced puzzle game steeped in classic Nintendo nostalgia, complete with
sprite art, boppin’ 2A03 soundtrack, and... dear Altana, they even threw in a pulse-line
throwback. A freakin’ PULSE LINE. You have my attention, Sirs and or Madams.
Oh, hey, a falling-block puzzle game! Your task is to assemble a sprite on the top screen
by clearing blocks - read: “pixels” - on the bottom. Seems simple enough. You have
a palette of eight pixels along the left side, where you can pick up single pixels and attempt
to use them to take care of the blocks descending from the top of the screen. You do this by
creating either squares or lines of 4, which eliminate those blocks and send them flying
to the top screen where they combine to assemble a Balloon Fight dude or the Pterodactyl from
Ice Climber or something. Chain reactions increase a multiplier which - rather than
just improving your score - increases the number of pixels contributed to the sprite
itself; once the picture is completed, the stage is cleared. Some blocks, however, are
marked with an X; these can’t be picked up and moved and must be cleared either by
inclusion in a reaction, or by use of the POW block at the bottom of your palette. Each
use of the POW block eliminates the bottom three rows of blocks and subjects everything
above those to the pull of gravity, but costs you one slot of your palette, requiring you
to buy back removed slots for 5 coins each. And the coins come from clearing a whole falling
formation before it hits the ground, or for each X-marked permablock. Sounds complicated,
huh? Well, it’s pretty easy to learn... but the game quickly ratchets the difficulty
up to “crazycakes.” And then you can buy even more difficult “dark” versions of
the stages with the coins you don’t spend on mid-game repairs... or unlocking the soundtrack.
Sure, it’s still playing by the same rules as the old Nintendo hardware. But it’s doing
so with almost thirty years of experience now. These are the Nintendo tunes you know
and love, remixed by Japanese chiptune mavens YMCK. This is what those tracks could’ve
sounded like, but didn’t. Not until now. A slew of NES classics are represented here...
is what I would say, except this game actually recognizes the existence of DEVIL WORLD. The
only Miyamoto game never to see US release. So I’ll say a slew of Famicom classics:
Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, Ice Climber, Wrecking Crew, Excitebike, Balloon Fight...
I’m in retro gaming heaven. Or, at least, I was... until I got to the 15th and final
level, which I should’ve seen coming. Go buy it yourself. It’s only 5 bucks on the
DSiWare store. Do it now, if you love old games. You may be moved to tears by the awesomeness
of this thing. I was