Pyoro (Bird and Beans) (Nintendo DS) Review

Pyoro is actually the name of the protagonist of this tasty morsel of a reflex action game; a squat bird with goggle eyes that comes in two coloured varieties. The first is a red Pyoro with a really long, extendable tongue, whilst the other is of the yellow assortment and has the ability to spit an endless supply of seeds off into the air at a very fast pace. Rather than fly around collecting food, these Pyoro instead choose to trot along the ground attacking the continuous supply of bean sprouts that inexplicably fall from the sky at an increasingly speedier rate (the longer Pyoro survives without being hit on the head by one, the faster the pace). If unable to eat the beans, players must ensure Pyoro is not struck on the head as leads to a Game Over scenario that many gamers will become far too accustomed to thanks to the high difficulty level as play goes on.

Our red feathered friend can stick its lengthy tongue out at an unchangeable diagonal angle to swallow the beans from afar, with the length of time the action button is pressed down dictating its overall reach. Each time a bean is consumed, points are accrued, with a higher amount gained depending upon how quickly the bean is grabbed. For instance, should one have appeared from the top of the screen and Pyoro's tongue is stuck out the maximum distance to immediately grab it, then the highest score is given, whilst the lowest is when a bean is a small margin away from hitting the ground. To make matters a little more dicey, though, and ultimately rewarding when a solution is found, if a bean is completely missed and does land on the ground, the floor will start to disappear, one small block going each time it is struck by a bean.

Thankfully there are ways to reconstruct the vital platform Pyoro must run about on (it must be pointed out that the bird cannot cross gaps in the floor, thus becoming trapped if enough surrounding tiles have gone). There are three types of bean: a bog-standard green one, a white one that fills in one missing ground block, and flashing beans that make all other on-screen beans disappear, plus replenishes several floor tiles in one fell swoop. Therefore, as the action is heating up, the speed and quantity of beans falling from the sky is sky-rocketing and the background begins to change to a more developed scene, whilst all hope may seems lost as there are hardly any floor tiles left for poor Pyoro to move around on, grabbing the white and flashing beans at the last moment can really save the day and lead to massive sighs of relief.

With the game being viewed only on either the upper or lower DSi screen, without using any touch-screen or microphone functions, Pyoro is indeed an ultra basic title and people may well be disconcerted by this fact. However, for its mere 200 Points players should hardly complain since not only is it very cheap, but it has considerably more replay value than the 500 Points priced WarioWare: Snapped!. Although there is no two-player battling or online leaderboards, there is the enticement to keep plugging away at the first game on offer in order to unlock Pyoro 2, which features the yellow version of the creature (the seed spitter). This is ultimately the same game but with a slightly alternative scoring system and method of despatching beans - using rapid seed-firing instead, allowing for combinations to be achieved, as seeds will split through more than one bean at once if timed right. So the key this time is to wait until a few beans are clustered together on their descent before blasting away at them, and consequently a higher score can be achieved than on the first Pyoro game. The mix of tension, addictive high score beating and the immense fun factor certainly make Pyoro / Bird & Beans one of the highlights of the DSiWare launch line-up.