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"A very difficult, yet very fun puzzle game."

A long time ago, back when the Game Gear was still made, this was one of my favorite games. Looking back on it now, while it seems a bit dated, the charm hasn't died. (If a sequel were to be made, I'd buy the first day it was out.)

Graphics: 9/10
Below average detail for a Game Gear game, I can't really thing of one that had worse graphics. However, the graphics, despite being poor, are by no means hard on the eyes. They certainly convey what everything is fairly well. Perhaps it's just nostalgia, but the graphics themselves have a sort of basic charm to them.

Sound: 9/10
Perfect, or nearly so. Certainly, the music isn't very detailed, but they're the sort of tunes that stick with you, that you just randomly start humming. Very catchy, and just fun to listen to.

Gameplay: 10/10
Unbelievably fun. The basic idea is that you have a slowly-moving red ball in a grid of tiles that each have a path engraved on them. If the red ball hits a wall or a tile that has no path connecting to the path it's on, you start the level over. There are also tiles on the outside walls of the grid - Pass the ball through them to make them disappear. Once you pass all of them, you move on to the next level.

Have you ever played one of those 16-tile puzzles where there's only space missing and you move the tiles in to the blank space to move them around, and the idea is to get them all in a certain order? The game plays like a twist on that - you control the blank tile as you rearrange the tiles in such a way to allow the ball to pass through all of them. But, you do this all as the ball moves, and it begins moving immediately at the start of the level - the ball may move slowly, but you still have to act very quickly to clear a level. Additionally, while you can move the tile the ball is on, if the ball should ever touch the blank tile, you have to start the level over.

As if it wasn't tough enough, there's a timer constantly counting down, and when it runs out, you lose a red ball. You can run the ball in to certain things to expand your time, which is always useful, and make it go faster, which makes things quite a bit tougher for you. At the start of the game you can choose to start at any of the first 50 levels. After beating the game, you can play 10 more levels by selecting them in the level select area after you're taken to the main screen when the credits roll (but of course if you shut the game off you'll be limited to the first 50 since it has no battery save.) You can also choose between various difficulty levels, as well as how many red balls you start with... But no matter which one you choose, it becomes very difficult towards the end. The game moves a bit slowly towards the beginning, but you can always just hold down the speed up button the whole time early on so it doesn't hurt the overall score.

Controls: 10/10
Basic, yet easy to work with. You move tiles touching the blank tile with the directional buttons. Button one greatly speeds up the red ball while you're holding it down. Button two isn't used.

Replayability: 9.5/10
The game is very addictive, and you'll want to play it over and over again. The only reason I don't still periodically play it is because I lost my copy of it.

Overall score:
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 9/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Controls: 10/10
Replayability: 9.5/10
Reviewer's tilt: 10/10
Overall score: 9.5833333~
Adjusted for GameFAQs' scoring system: 10/10

Buy or Rent?
If you see this in a store - which is rather doubtful at this point, but bear with me - and you have a Game Gear, buy it, regardless of the price.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/04/05, Updated 03/28/05