Azada (Nintendo 3DS) Review

Some of the best examples in the puzzle genre on Nintendo DS were those that melded various styles together, such as City Interactive's Crime Lab: Body of Evidence and Chronicles of Mystery: The Secret Tree of Life. This 3DS game follows that idea somewhat, bringing together enough styles to keep everything flowing nicely to the end, but scaling back on the story, instead providing a slim premise for why the brain teasers must be overcome and then drip-feeds more details as the game goes on through to its conclusion.

A magician by the name of Titus has found himself trapped in a haunted room by his great-uncle and the player has been drawn in by the last morsels of wizardry left at his disposal in an effort to help him escape. The game is set over ten chapters, with each new one lifting the lid on further details to flesh out the tale. Every section is littered with a mixture of mini-games, conundrums, hidden object scenarios and general puzzles that will get the old grey matter working. There are 23 types that are repeated a total of three times before the full story behind Titus and his situation is revealed. The aim is to piece together ten parts of a painting of him that have been scattered around the innards of a mysterious tome, a volume that also sheds more light on the matter at hand.

From rearranging matchsticks to form new images, piecing together jigsaws, completing tangram pictures, decoding trends, following patterns, working out correct sequences, and sliding blocks around to move a specific one through at exit, right through to more complicated challenges such as clearing a board full of pawns, battling the computer AI to draw squares one line at a time across a large grid, solving Sudoku-like boards, guiding a robot around a maze to find all the batteries by quickly placing the correct directional arrows on its path, and even having to take part in hidden object stages that require logical thinking rather than mindless screen tapping. Azada impresses throughout, showing the development team definitely put a lot of thought into ensuring the best experience for gamers, rather than offering a watered-down product for the casual market. Okay, the graphics are not a match for the PC original, but everything still looks good enough - if not amazing - on the 3DS screens, and the soundtrack is sturdy enough to last to the end without growing repetitive. With there being more Azada games available on PC, it is hoped that this will not be the first and last seen of the series on Nintendo systems.