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It isn’t often that we’re asked to review a Dreamcast game—and if that wasn’t odd enough, a new Dreamcast game—but that’s exactly what happened recently here at Icrontic. Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles is the very latest in Dreamcast puzzle releases from half-Chinese, half-Costa Rican developers YuanWorks and German publisher redspotgames. Dreamcast/Puzzle game enthusiasts, before you get too excited—be warned, this game is very complex.
The core game itself is loosely similar to traditional puzzle games such as Tetris and Bejeweled. Columns of blocks line the play area, which “burst” when arranged in a diamond. The blocks come in seven elemental varieties: Water, Earth, Fire, Wood, Steel, Wind, and Void. Bursting 4 blocks of the same element is called a “Combo”, and bursting 4 or more blocks of two or more elements is called an “Elemental”.
Danger break!
Whenever a burst causes other blocks to fall into place to produce another burst, it is called a “Chain”. If a burst successfully clears all blocks of a single type is called a “Full clear”. On top of that, three types of special bursts exist, the Wind and Water clear, the Void clear, and the Full Clear, all of which are done by combining certain blocks in a diamond. The skill level settings change the way that Time combo/chains are calculated and achieved, in addition to changing the function of Wind and Void blocks in a variety of ways.
The game features several different game modes:
Story mode: This game mode places the player at the helm of a typical teenage anime protagonist, Amy, as she navigates a game world reminiscent of the design used in Super Mario Brothers 3. Her goals are rather strange, ranging from motivating the developers, Hao and Yuan, to complete the game’s development, to unlocking all the “Making-of” features. Each set of levels is designed the same way, demonstrating each facet of gameplay along with some overly peppy dialogue from Amy, and then forcing the player to perform the newly learned mechanic in the following stage(s).
The major flaw, which presents itself in every area throughout story mode, is that the player passes rather easily through the tutorial stages only to slam up against an incredibly difficult duel or elemental challenge stage. These stages aren’t necessarily won through skill, but by stumbling upon a favorable block layout after what seems to be an undetermined amount of stage restarts—causing a string of stressful failures at each stage before finally making a breakthrough.
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Arcade mode: This game mode allows the player to play the puzzle game itself. Both single player and multi-player game modes can be accessed through Arcade mode, with the option of playing vs a CPU opponent or a human opponent. Vs mode (Puzzle Battling) is extremely arduous against the CPU on all difficulties, as the rules for losing/gaining press levels in this type of play are only ambiguously mentioned in the tutorial/manual (“The black press at the bottom of the board will ascend depending on the Speed Level or the attack of another player…Clearing blocks will make the Press descend, and Special Clears will do it faster!”).
There are three difficulty levels, which also dictate the types of specials available in addition to the types of blocks which are inserted into standard play. The difficulty levels are Normal, Hard, and Master. Master is the only difficulty that does not allow any type of specials. During the start of a Puzzle battle (vs mode), the player(s) select their stance, which affects the mitigation and distribution of press levels both on offense and defense. When playing against a computer, the player must select one of the seven difficulty settings (the computer will always use the same skill setting selected by the player). One begins to see the massive amount of complexity involved.
Puzzle mode: This game mode allows the player to play a series of pre-configured block arrangements, which the player must complete using only a limited number of block rotations. This reminded me of the similar puzzle play modes in both Pokemon Puzzle League and Tetris DS, as it provides the same style of play.
Extra mode: This game mode allows the player to play any of the various minigames found throughout the story mode after first clearing them and purchasing them from the Shop. This mode also allows the player to view any “Making of” pieces they have purchased at the Shop in Story mode. After completing the second Element Challenge, players may also find any unlocked Character Bios, History of Yuan Works projects, and an Art Gallery. Player statistics can also be found here, displaying such information as: Total time played, Story time played, puzzles solved, slides unlocked, etc.
Now, on to the madness
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