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It happens for a lot of reasons. Maybe it was lousy development or poor execution. Maybe
it was never practical in the first place. But whatever the reason, good ideas don’t
always become good video games.
Part of me wants to say Crush 3D is one of those ideas and one of those games.
But on the other hand, part of me doesn’t. There are times when Crush 3D amazes. Solving
its puzzles in four or five or however many dimensions is uniquely rewarding, even ingenious
at times. But most times, it’s a frustrating, convoluted experience too complicated for
its own good.
Crush 3D is actually the game’s second attempt at glory. The original Crush was a critically
acclaimed PlayStation Portable release, but it didn’t fare quite as well with consumers.
In fact, the game kind of tanked at retail, but it’s been brought to the Nintendo 3DS
with hopes for a second chance.
All that really means is strike two.
You play Crush 3D as Danny, a young boy who has lost his marbles. I guess he’s fortunate,
though, because there’s a crazy scientist who teaches him how to crush space to collect
them. I don’t know, I would’ve just asked for new marbles.
So it works like this. Crush 3D is basically a 3D platform/puzzler with the marbles scattered
among the platforms. You can rotate the camera into fixed viewpoints, which can reveal especially
well-hidden marbles or bonus objects. But even then, many are still out of your reach.
And that’s when you have to crush this business.
There’s no way to explain this all that well, and uh...frankly, the game’s tutorial
is too boring and long-winded to bother reading. But the idea is you can turn 3D things into
these 2D things. So if you’re looking at the level from the side and you crush it,
the layers come together and the entire thing becomes a side-scroller.
You can crush from any viewpoint, as well, and each perspective gives you unique results...results
you’ll have to explore thoroughly to figure out how to collect all your marbles, find
the exit and then actually get there.
I guess it’s kind of like Super Paper Mario, only with several ways to change your perspective
and flatten the level. And it’s really ingenious to apply that concept to a puzzle platformer,
but again, it’s too ingenious for its own good. That is to say, your sense of accomplishment
from this game is greatly hindered by the headaches that come with it.
Crush 3D becomes so obtuse, it’s not even fun anymore. In fact, it doesn’t take much
time before the whole affair kind of just devolves into this game of trial and error.
I was clueless about how to actually solve the level’s puzzle, so I just tried crap
until it either worked or I died. Not much fun.
The idea seems so clever, but when you dig into the game it’s been turned into, you
discover either Crush 3D doesn’t capitalize on the concept as well as it should or it’s
simply a bit too clever to be enjoyable.
Either that or you suck.