Azada

"Pretty easy and fun puzzling for a few hours."

I enjoy puzzle games, especially if the puzzles are fun and can be done in little snippets here and there. One day while looking for such games, this name popped up, so I downloaded the free demo, and it was fun enough that I got the game. Now that I've beaten it, I figured I'd throw a review out there, in case anyone is looking for more information about the game.

Story (N/A): Some guy named Titus got stuck inside of a puzzle book and you need to solve all the puzzles in the book to free him. Yeah, there's a story, but it's not what the game is about. It's more just a reason for them to make a game out of some puzzles.

Gameplay (7/10): There isn't much else to this game other than the puzzles, so how are they? Well, in my opinion, they're fun, for the most part. There are 80+ puzzles in the game, and they are split into 10 chapters of 8 puzzles and a puzzle at the end. There are 20 or so types of puzzles in the game. Most of them are fun, some I didn't really care for, but the mix is good enough that you don't have to do any you don't like all that often. My favorite ones were a combination of seek and find along with adventure game type puzzles. You'd have to search around for a few items, and then figure out how to use them to get the scroll that you are looking for. Some other puzzle types include finding 2 butterflies that match in a group of butterflies, a memory type game, a Mastermind type game, finding your way through a maze, figuring out a sequence and many more. Almost none of them are hard, and in fact most of them shouldn't even take 5 minutes to beat. The puzzles at the end of the game seem to be a little harder than the ones at the beginning of the game, but not so much so that you should get frustrated. Like I said in the introduction, it's a good game if you want some easy puzzles to solve in a few minutes during some downtime.

Graphics (7/10): What's there looks good and is pretty sharp. Most of the puzzles have pretty simple graphics, as there isn't much to do. The few puzzles that have more items on the screen at once don't really seem to cluttered, and everything is usually pretty easy to see. Sometimes some of the items you're supposed to find can be a bit hard to find, but I get the feeling that they are that way on purpose, not because the graphics aren't good.

Sound (5/10): The music wasn't too bad, but to be honest, I turned both the music and sound effects all the way down, and either listened to the radio or music on my computer while playing the game. There's no voice acting for the story, so you don't have to worry about missing any of that if you don't listen to the music.

Difficulty and Length (5/10): This game is pretty easy. Like I said before, most of the puzzles can be beaten rather quickly and easily, but with 80+ puzzles it'll probably take at least 20-30 minutes for each group of 8 puzzles. All in all, though, the game probably shouldn't take you more than 4-5 hours to beat, which, for the type of game this is, really isn't all that bad.

Replayability (5/10): There are over 20 puzzle types, and once you play them, they are unlocked for free play, so you can replay them as much as you want. Some of the puzzles will be repeats of the ones you played in the actual game, but they also throw in more of each puzzle as well, so if there are a few puzzle types that you really like, you'll be able to play them whenever you want, and probably have new levels to play whenever you feel like playing. The only downside is the seek and find and adventure type puzzles that were my favorite aren't represented here. I can understand why there aren't new puzzles of those types, but I kind of wish they would have let you play the old ones again if you wanted to without going through the game. They probably wouldn't have been all that fun a second time, though, so it's more of a minor setback.

Final Score (6/10): For $20, I think it's probably a little bit overpriced, but not any worse than a lot of games out there today, and it probably is a better deal than quite a few games. If you belong to any website where you can download it cheaper and it sounds like the sort of game you enjoy and are looking for, then I would buy it, as it'll give you a few hours of fun.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10 | Originally Posted: 08/25/08

Game Release: Azada (US, 01/22/08)

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