In the most elaborate story for a puzzle game involving
blocks since Super Breakout supposedly represented shuttle astronauts trapped in space, Puzzled
tells the story of a war between the sexes with each side trying to reach the
sun god via a hot air balloons!
While you may dismiss the game as a Tetris
clone, Puzzled has slightly different
rules. Individual blocks will collapse after clearing
a row and your goal is to clear just enough blocks to
free your balloon and get to the next tower level. Along
the way you'll meet different lesser gods who will offer
random advice and occasionally challenge you to a jumping
mini game.
There are 120 levels giving the game quite a bit of depth
(especially for an arcade game) so using a Neo-Geo memory
card is recommended.
Graphics are simple, but clean—comparable to other
early 90's arcade puzzle games. The music is varied and
quite good—with different tempos depending on how
close you are to dying.
Puzzled is a fun game with just enough
differences from Tetris to stand on its
own. Recommended if you like the genre.
2008 ben langberg, all rights reserved.