7 Wonders II (Nintendo DS) Review

Rather than providing some half-baked attempt at a story, the premise of 7 Wonders II is simply that players must travel to seven locations around the world, and help workers construct wondrous buildings, monuments and structures, such as Stone Henge, The Great Wall of China, Angkor Wat and the Shwedagon Pagoda. Instead of merely leaving it at that, though, upon reaching each location, historical facts are provided on each feature, such as how the chief mason that built the Taj Mahal had one hand chopped off by the emperor to prevent him ever creating anything quite as magnificent. Gruesome, but intriguing nonetheless!

Fans of Jewel Quest will be right at home with 7 Wonders II, as the idea is to match three or more of the same coloured runes found in a playing grid filled with various differently shaded tiles, by tapping on one and then on another, either one square to its left or right, which then results in the two swapping positions. If a match is not made, the two tiles revert to their previous positions and the player must try again, all the while keeping a close eye on the timer which is rapidly running out as play continues. As each batch of runes is cleared away on the lower screen, the space is filled by runes above falling downwards, and with careful planning this can lead to chains forming as colours dropping from higher up then match with ones they ultimately land on. Additionally, as more runes are cleared, stone is thrown out and carried up to the top screen for the workers to use for construction purposes. Once a sufficient amount has been collected, a level is complete.

After a stage has reached its conclusion, players have a certain amount of building blocks to use in order to work towards securing the final piece of the next Wonder of the World. During play, whilst in the middle of clearing groups of coloured tiles, pieces of map are sometimes uncovered and when all the required pieces have been found and a map is finally completed, you are whisked away to a situation where said map appears on-screen and must cleverly be navigated to the bottom of the pile by clearing a path through the coloured runes in the set number of moves attributed.

There are also special bonus items to use whilst on the puzzle field, such as 'X-Power,' which generates a powerful electric charge and clears tiles in an x-shaped pattern, or 'Score Multiplier,' which multiplies all points scored during a thirty-second time period. When building the new Wonders, sometimes players will uncover bonus points or new items to use during the main puzzles, such as items that immediately create a match to clear a group of runes, or freeze time for a small amount of time. The whole experience proves to be extremely addictive, which ends up making the experience quite a short one on the whole, since playing through to the game's final credits only takes a few hours. Also, sadly there is no multiplayer element, nor are there any online league tables for added incentive to beat high score point totals. But for a budget bit of puzzling fun, DS owners could do much worse.