"A puzzle game that features rocket-blocks may be the best one of its genre ever..."

Q Entertainment has become the new king of handheld puzzlers. After creating the fantastic Lumines for the PSP, they now have cornered the puzzle market on the DS as well with Meteos. Sure, many puzzle games are out for the DS, such as Puyo Pop Fever, Polarium or others. But Q Entertainment quickly defeats them with this fantastic handheld. I have never been so addicted to a game as much as I am to Meteos right now. I have never played a puzzle game like this; a game that is so good in all areas.

Gameplay - 10/10
This is by far the most important part in a puzzle game, and Meteos has no flaws in this department. Just like any other puzzler, you are given a big tank, and blocks are falling into it. And just like any other puzzler, the game ends when a block reaches the top. But Meteos version of this concept is like no other. In order to get rid of some blocks, all one has to do is line at least three identical blocks, or Meteos, next to each other, either horizontally or vertically. Instead of disappearing, those blocks turn into rockets, and they blast upwards, along with any block on top of those blocks. Any block that gets past the top of the bottom screen is then gone for good.

Of course, only getting one blast at a time would not be very exciting. You can combo every blast into a more powerful blast. When Meteos are fired into the air, you can still move them around, and if you line three more again, they will blast off even more. Or you can set up the Meteos so when the floating Meteos land, they form a new line of three with a new column next to it, so then you can send up even more Meteos at a time, with more force. Rinse, lather, and repeat until the screen is cleared or you lose.

However, in this game, you face opponents, whether computer or animated. This works similar to Tetris multiplayer with garbage on. Every Meteo you blast goes towards your opponent. And every Meteo that you opponent blast may fall onto your screen. And when Meteos from another planet fall onto your screen, they first show up as blank, but then they turn into Meteos at the same time, which may give you only a few seconds to react before you lose. This is an important concept on how this game is played. The top screen of the DS shows these planets, but they are also shown on the side of the bottom screen. As a result, the top screen is quite useless in this game.

But every planet feels unique; no two planets feel the same when you play on them. For example, you may find vertical boosts to be more effective on a certain planet than others. The gravity of a planet are different where some planets the Meteos blast off the screen, where others it slowly moves up to the screen. One planet even has the Meteos disappear when you line three next to each other! Some planets have the Meteos that are rising be heavily affected by falling Meteos, while others do not get affected by it at all. The difference of every planet makes a huge difference on how this game is played.

This game has a certain Super Smash Bros feel, and that is understandable in a game with the same director. The menu looks the same, and there are stats for things that you didn't know about, like total play time, how many times you turned on the game, the total amount of Meteos blasted, and others. And maybe the most direct similarity is how items are used in the game. That's right, you can use crazy items in this game. But they are either helpful or unhelpful, or both. You can destroy all your Meteos, but a con is now you lose blocks that you could have blasted off. You can annihilate a row, but that makes it difficult for you chain combo since you are now missing a row. My favorite item is the Super Rocket. You can send it to the bottom of the screen, and it when it triggers, it turns the bottom row into rockets, which then sends every block up. If you can combo right, you could clear the screen.

This game is action packed. With in 5 minutes, the blocks will be falling at a pace where your goal is not to get rid of them all, but rather you are just trying to survive. For this reason, this makes this game much more portable than its PSP counterpart Lumines. A Lumines game can last over hours, while you may never last more than 6 minutes on a single game on Meteos.

Now that you understand how this game plays, I will go into the modes of this game.

Single Player-10/10
When plays a puzzle game, he usually plays alone. And this game is incredibly fun with just one player. It offers 4 different modes of single player, and I will go over each one at a time.

Star Trip-This is the story mode of the game. A puzzle game with a story? Yes, Q Entertainment took some time to put one in. And it fits in well with the game. An evil planet called Meteo is spewing Meteos, which in turn go to other planets, and bombard them until they are destroyed. One planet was about to be destroyed, but by chance three similar Meteos lined up, and blasted upwards to save the planet from destructions. Now, you are piloting a ship that will go and defeat Meteo. In tis mode, you face other planets, and defeat them until you get to Meteo. This is kind of a loophole, since if you were trying to save the universe, why would you be defeating other planets? Anyways, you have three different modes of how to do this: Linear, which just has you defeat planet after planet until you get to Meteo; Branch, with is like Linear, but you can choose which of two planets to go; and Multi, where you have to face multiple opponents at the same time, and try to accomplish a mission while playing it.

Simple-This is the mode that lets you play the any way you want on any planet available. You want to play by Time or Stock? (SSB!) Choose it! You want to face opponents, or go by yourself? You can change the amount of time or amount of lives you get in this mode. This mode is perfect for practice.

Time War-This is when you have a goal, and you try to complete with either the best score or time possible. In the 2 and 5 minute time war, you try to last for that period, while trying to get as a high score as you can. In the 100 or 1000 Meteos challenge, you try to launch that many Meteos as fast as you can. This is quite fun, and addicting.

Deluge-It's your simple “choose you planet and last as long as you can” mode. Here, you try to survive as long as you can. It records you top scores, to see your improvement.

Multiplayer-9/10

Thanks to the DS's wireless connection, you can play with anybody a DS. You can play either single pack or multi pack, and it makes a difference. Only 4 maps are available in single pack, and they are quite boring maps, which is why I deducted a point from the score here. Multi pack puts every map available. Playing multiplayer is like playing CPU opponents, but at least you get bragging rights in this mode.

Controls-9/10
This game is built thanks to the DS's Touch Screen capabilities. Instead of hitting buttons, you can use your stylus to grab a Meteo or item, and shift it up or down in its column. That is how you control this puzzler. But in a fast and frantic game such as this one, it is the only way this game is playable. Q Entertainment even allows you try to play the game with buttons, but as you can tell by now, it is near impossible to do. Kudos to a game that doesn't use the Touch Screen as a gimmick, and it joins a short list of games that uses the Touch Screen as the main method of control. And it works beautifully. My only complaint about it that sometimes it is hard to grab the Meteo what you want, but that is expected when you try to grab small things in a fast game like this one.

Graphics-8/10
When someone plays a puzzle game, the Graphics should not be that much of a factor of the overall performance of the game. But the graphics in Meteos presents itself nicely. Crisp 2D images make up the screen in this game, but the shading is crisp. The Meteos themselves look good, and they change depending on the planet that you are playing on. When you blast Meteos off your screen in a game with opponents, you can see on the top screen of the DS that the Meteos come off your screen and attack the planet that you wish to. Overall, these simple graphics may not be pushing the DS's power, but yet it works well for this game.

Sound -8/10
Just like graphics, sound does not make or break a puzzle game. But Meteos doesn't have bad sounds either. The music for most levels sounds like some sort of Techno, which makes sense for a fast game like this. However, some of the slower planets have slower, dreamlike songs. The sound effects are crisp, but some are quite annoying, like if you do a vertical boost in specific planet, it sounds like something crying. Personally, my favorite song is the one in the credits. The sound does not undermine the quality of the game.

Replayablilty -10/10
This games replayability is off the charts. Thanks to the unlocking system, it takes quite a while to unlock everything. You need to unlock nearly every planet, item, and sound for the game. To do this, you spend Meteos to do this. That's right. Every time you blast a Meteo, you can use that Meteo as currency later. This results in massive playtime for you to unlock everything. And you only can see what you can unlock only after you able to unlock it. That means you don't know what you exactly need in order to unlock something. As a result, you will be playing this game for a while. If you are like me, when you get multiple items to pop up in the screen, then you will not turn off the system until you “buy” them all. I have never played a puzzler that kept me hooked like this.

Overall-9/10
This is simply the best puzzle game I have ever played on a technical standpoint. It lacks some of the magic that Tetris had, but that can't be duplicated. For anybody who likes fast puzzles, this is a game for you. You can literally spend hours playing this, and you may not wish to put the system down. For anybody with a DS, you need to go to the nearest Video Game retailer near you, and purchase this. This is the first DS game that kept my hands glued to it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/06/05