These blocks are groovin' to a different beat.

During the end of the sixth generation of videogames, old-school gamers such as myself feared that classic titles might be seen even less than in the already occasional compilation game. With the push for higher technology (and the death of the Game Boy), it seemed like the classic game was dying out a bit. However, after the creation of Nintendo’s WiiWare & DSiWare, Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade, Sony’s PlayStation Network, and even Apple’s iPhone App Store, The under $15 gaming market has been booming over the past several years; in fact, it’s almost as if we’ve seen a renaissance of the older market, featuring massive amounts of remakes and rehashes, as well as a plethora of new titles in every genre with less of a focus on technology and more focus on classic gameplay. To be honest, I couldn’t be happier with the balance of titles both classic and current and I continue to build a never-ending list of backlogged games that I need to play.

Groovin’ Blocks was yet another one of the downloadable classics that we’ve been introduced to and when it debuted on WiiWare about a year ago, it was received well amongst the gaming community as well as critics. This rhythm based puzzle game was another strong addition to the growing rhythm based gaming market and the cheap $8 price point was well worth the price of admission. However, the review copy that I’m addressing today is actually the “new and improved” disc form of the game for all of you anti-downloadablists who prefer a hardcopy of your games. Does it provide enough improvements to warrant its new MSRP of $20 of should you stick with the originally intended downloadable form?

Lumines? (Not Actually)

Though the game looks like it might play a lot like fellow rhythm puzzler, Lumines, the truth is that the only similarity between the two is the dropping of blocks and the music playing in the background; Groovin’ Blocks definitely feels inspired by the game but the mechanics are much different in form. Players drop series of different colored blocks in an attempt to match 3 of the same color in a row (and thereby eliminate the pairing). Like Lumines, your session is over either if you manage to make it through the entirety of a song or if your dropped blocks stack above the top line.

The implementation of the music, however, is the key part of the game that makes it differ from Lumines. In Lumines, your score multiplies according to the number of block eliminations you can accrue in one frame of the song while in Groovin’ Blocks, you’ll be rewarded for synchronized dropping with the beat of the song. Thus, in Lumines, players must frantically create combos in as fast as possible, while Groovin’ Blocks is a more laid back approach where timed beats are the key to high scores. It is this fact that makes Groovin’ Blocks more of a hybrid between Lumines and, say, Guitar Hero than a straight copy, and is also what made it such a hit. The marriage of the two forms of gameplay truly requires a balance from both types of gaming skill sets (reflexes and puzzle solving).

The game features 17 different songs to choose from, each of which is a lengthy, groovin’ techno track. There are three different difficulty settings, each of which consists of the same set of 17 songs in 7 different tiers of songs. Aside from just changing the speed or quantity of blocks, however, the difficulty actually changes the number and shape of the blocks to be dropped; easy difficulty consists only of straight pieces made up of three individual blocks, while medium and hard mode consist of a combination of these straight pieces as well as four square pieces.

All three difficulties are available from the beginning of the game but the songs themselves must be unlocked. After finishing a song, players will get a number of stars from 0-3 according to the point level they reach and after accruing enough stars (you can only get a maximum of 3 from each song and repeating does not win you more), you’ll unlock the next tier of songs. Each level of difficulty rewards players with a different color of stars and though each color only unlocks songs from its respective difficulty, there is one case in particular where stars from all three difficulties is beneficial: At first, it is actually difficult to win the maximum number of stars on a level, even on the easier levels, but the game’s other unlockable feature, items, makes for added replay value and a built-in reward system for playtime.

There are actually only 5 items in the game but each of these can be upgraded up to 2 times to bring these up to their third level of effectiveness. Each item is automatically unlocked once you’ve collected enough stars and their impact on the gameplay is immense. Items appear randomly throughout your puzzle sessions and can only be activated if they are placed on time with the beat and once they’ve been eliminated by matching three in a row. These items may take a little to set off but they are certainly worth the trouble as they can do anything from temporarily increasing points, destroying blocks, changing the colors of nearby blocks, and even slowing down the drop rate of the blocks; on hard mode, I found it almost imperative to use the majority of the items to stay alive. And, as you upgrade the items, their effects are dramatically increased: A level 3 lightning bolt will destroy a 5x5 grid of blocks.

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The game also features a decent amount of options, most notably the ability to calibrate your TV’s lag (like from Rock Band or Guitar Hero), as well as the ability to account for colorblind individuals (by changing the shape of each colored block accordingly. Multiplayer is another nice addition to the game, with two different successful two-player modes, head-to-head and coop. Head to Head is self explanatory, where players must battle one another for either the top score or to be the last man standing and everything from trash to harmful item effects make it a solid multiplayer experience. Coop, on the other hand is a great addition to any game, let alone a puzzle title where you don’t see it much. Here, players work together on the same grid, sharing multipliers and items, and it makes for a great twist on the traditional puzzle experience.

What is severely lacking in this title is online functionality. For $8, the downloadable version of the title had an excuse for its lack of online gameplay but for $20, gamers at least want an online leader board so they can compare their highest scores to the likes of the gaming community. Any form of online multiplayer would have also greatly boosted the appeal of the game but the lack of any online functionality severely hampers its overall worth.

Also, I wasn’t actually the hugest fan of the included soundtrack, not just composition-wise but also in terms of instrumental quality. For a music game, I expect some of the best quality sounds to come from the game but this one had a cheap quality about its music/sound effects. Otherwise, the presentation is very simplistic which is ok but it really lacks the star-power of a “great” game (for instance, Pictobits for the DS is a highly artistic game with a top notch soundtrack as well as gameplay to make for the ultimate package in puzzling).

Summary

Overall, I enjoyed Groovin’ Blocks and agree with the sentiments of the many who played the original downloadable title: it is a unique take on music themed puzzling and is very addictive in gameplay. But, for $20, you’d better add a lot of material to your game if you’re trying to separate it from an $8 release of the same title (which was not done here). In fact, there really weren’t any large changes at all, especially in terms of online integration, which wasn’t even touched. I know the developers ran out of memory through their initial downloadable title but I still feel like it’s a better buy than the price tag of its hardcopy form.