Mole Mania (Game Boy) Review

Mole Mania's storyline is basic but provides sufficient background and motivation. As the father mole to a small family, Muddy Mole has to dig into action when his wife and kids get mole-knapped by an irate farmer called Jimbe, working his way through eight worlds of boulder-pushing and tunnel-digging. Small cut-scenes that go light on text but heavy on expression and character animation separate each level, and the signpost text that separates important areas and describes new abilities when use of them is required help to convey a lively personality for the game. The addictive happy music and sound effects on show only add to the personality of the game.

The game's presentation takes several cues from the Game Boy The Legend of Zelda titles, mainly in how the levels are laid out in grids and the quick vertical or horizontal transition between each. Another is in how the gameplay works, in that in a four-way square-by-square movement grid players are faced with the task of getting a black ball to a gate placed at the end of an obstacle course in order to open up the next screen. These courses start off simple, gently letting you get to grips with the button layout and allowing for experimentation with the surprisingly versatile control scheme.

Things soon get challenging though, when wandering enemies pop up, brain-bending turns become commonplace, and even the slightest wrong movement means restarting the course. Thankfully doing so is simple; either the pause menu's restart function or just returning to a previous screen will reset the puzzle ready for another try. The game's immediate charm will help to alleviate any frustration with a wrong movement, and the addictive satisfaction of solving later difficult puzzles is certainly no hindrance either.

Mole Mania's range of gameplay is strictly limited to puzzle grids, but with a startling amount of freedom in what the character can do in regards to grabbing, pushing and digging, made even more impressive by the D-pad and two button limitation, there is a surprising amount of variation in the game. Eight worlds may not sound like a lot, and there aren't any multiplayer features to speak of, but the fiendish puzzles in later worlds and the secret areas hidden in each one ensure that Mole Mania more than justifies the bargain £2.69 entry fee. As with Donkey Kong '94, though, it is just a shame that the colour brought about by the Super Game Boy SNES add-on device was not included in this download edition.