Reflect Missile (Trajectile) (Nintendo DS) Review

Whilst most Cubed3 reviews tend to play it coy in the intro section, luring readers into the full review to find out whether or not the game in question is exactly what people were expecting, for Reflect Missile it is a case of taking a different tact and stating right from the off: 'Buy this game!' The reason behind this is that DSiWare service has become home to some seriously fantastic pieces of pure puzzle goodness, yet none of them seem to fare well in terms of overall downloads. A Little Bit of Puzzle League, Sujin Taisen: Number Battles, Wakugumi: Monochrome Puzzles and every single Art Style release from Skip Ltd - none of them have managed to reach the dizzy popularity of Pyoro, Mario vs. Donkey Kong or Flipnote Studio. However, this should change with Q-Games' latest release, since the company has shot right to the top of the puzzle pack with this retro-themed slice of gaming greatness that extracts the best qualities of Arkanoid (block breaking) and Bust-A-Move (angled shooting), then mixes in fresh elements to help make it feel far more than a mere amalgamation of other developers' products.

There is no multiplayer mode, nor are there any fancy online leader-boards to keep track of high scores. Instead Q-Games has focused on making this a delectable experience for solo players that have a spare 500 Points on their DSi systems. Sporting purposefully rudimentary visuals, with neon-coloured rockets shooting across the various sparsely detailed levels on offer, Reflect Missile at times is reminiscent of a how Tron might look if viewed from a top-down perspective. Retro fans will find themselves in pixel-heaven thanks to the visual slant taken in this stylistic action-puzzle-strategy game that comes with a trademark soundtrack oozing with quality.

Players are faced with different difficulty classes upon starting up the main mode (there is a quick play option as well for those that do not wish to methodically work through stages). Yet only one of these is open to begin with. A set number of stages must be completed before the next batch is unlocked, and each difficulty class contains a plethora of block-filled arenas that not only become increasingly complex in layout further into the game, but also introduce numerous other types of rocket that improve upon the bog-standard ones offered up to begin with. This helps to counter the arduous task ahead in order to prevent proceedings from becoming too unfair on innocent gamers hoping to not pull out all their hair in frustration. Upon entering a stage, there are plain blocks in clear view placed around the top screen, along with a few multi-coloured ones strewn amongst them. Using the limited array of fire power at your disposal, the coloured blocks must be destroyed by aiming your rocket(s) in the correct direction to either make them directly blast into the rainbow-hued clusters, or rebound at the right angle off surrounding walls, or unbreakable and non-coloured blocks.

Aiming is done via the touch-screen, with movement of the stylus around the screen dictating where the target guidance line moves to (just like in Bust-a-Move), and then once the desired angle has been obtained, simply holding the stylus steady for a second locks-on and lifting it up fires the rocket off upwards. There are standard 'Reflector' missiles that bounce off walls / blocks a certain amount of times before finally breaking, 'Drillers' that bore through a group of blocks all at once and 'Bombers' that cause an explosion within a small radius. With only a set number of attack attempts at your disposal, and the start position and spacing of missiles changing each time (as opposed to always being dead centre on the screen and the same distance apart) it is essential to aim as accurately as possible to achieve the most efficient outcome possible. In fact, to encourage increased accuracy, if a stage is completed using less than the designated number of shots allowed, a special medal is earned. To help in this respect, picking up 'x2' icons (doubles your current missile supply) or 'booster' ones (increases the effectiveness of weapons, such as making a Bomber's radius larger) will make your arsenal even more devastating. Reflect Missile may be as tough as nails in places, but it certainly tries to play as fair as possible to keep matters on the challenging side, rather than the frustrating one.