Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure Review
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure is a platformer for the DS that has a integrated puzzle aspect to it. You are Henry travelling through out the world to collect several different parts to the gentleman's suit. Each piece will make you that much stronger. Of course as all adventuring games go you're going to have a constant rival trying to throw obstacles in your path without ever really getting himself involved. If you are able to collect all the pieces you will be the perfect gentleman, and only the second ever. You'll also have the ability to close off the puzzle realm that has opened thanks to you finding the first piece.
The graphics look great for a DS game. There is definitely a different feel between the screens as you have your platformer in the top screen, and the ever going puzzle game in the bottom screen. The levels all have a distinct feel to them, and they don't ever feel too recycled when playing through the game.
The music and sounds I'm kind of torn between. The sounds used during the dialogue sections drives me up a wall. Yes I know, ha ha, you're making fun of how some British people can't be understood, but is it really necessary to be that far over the top? The level music is average it fits the levels but really doesn't do anything else to enhance the gameplay. The weird thing is the techno remix type music when you switch to the puzzle game, it feels out of place in comparison to all the other sounds and music.
The controls sadden me. I was hoping that I was going to be able to utilize the DS stylus and touch screen, but what I found was a game that could really be played on two non-touch screens. There is only one time that I found I needed to touch the screen and that was to activate Tea Time. The puzzle game really played much quicker with the buttons and directional pad than it did when trying to use the stylus. Other than that little quirk this game's controls worked to the specs that they were suppose to. There were times where I'm trying to perform the downward attack, but other than that the controls worked fine.
So the gameplay as stated before has you touring around these worlds to try to find the different pieces of the gentleman's suit. As you go through the level you'll inevitably encounter monsters that you'll have to attack, when you attack them, if you hit them enough times they will not turn into monster blocks but blocks that will help fill up your gauges. Speaking of which you can't infinitely play the puzzle game, there's a timer on the left hand side of the screen that tells you how much longer you have. You're going to find that the puzzle game will both give you a break from the action and also during some spots help you out with the items that have appeared in the puzzle. The game is going to build on in complexity as you're going through the game in both what the level layout looks like, the type of enemies you will face, and the type of blocks that are in the puzzle area.
This game is a fun and challenging game that is almost 100% spot on. There's just a couple of small little kinks, and some parts of the game that will keep players from being able to enjoy this game to its end. This game gets an 8.6 out of 10.
