Neves

 Neves Review (DS)

First and foremost, I must admit I've never been a fan of strategy/puzzle games. I've never been able to find enjoyment from games like Jewel Quest, or even Tetris. That's right. I'm not a fan of Tetris.  I know many people my age who could spend hours on Tetris, and even a few mothers. But those kind of games never really did it for me. Where's the bang? The explosions? The guns? I mean, at least give me a little blood for all the work and time I've put into completing each stage. With that said, I was a little worried with Neves.  It looks like your typical puzzle game found within the vast array of strategy games for the Nintendo DS.  While most of that holds true for Neves, I found the game to be better than expected. 

Simply put, Neves is a great time waster. When you first start up the game, you are given a tutorial on how to control each of the seven pieces available. It's a decent tutorial, but it isn't really needed. A few seconds of playing and you'll pick up on what to do. After the tutorial, you can then select from four different game modes: Silhouette, Time Pressure, 7 Steps and Multiplayer.

Silhouette mode is the easiest mode. You are given shapes in which you must fill in with the seven default pieces given to you. It sounds rather easy, and is until you get to some of the latter puzzles. The hardest ones are, ironically, the most simplistic of shapes such as a light socket. I spent a good 20-30 minutes on this particular one, and was embarrassed at the one mistake I did that caused me so much agony. You can easily get frustrated by having just one piece facing the wrong direction or not locked in.

There are four different rooms in silhouette mode, with each having three levels. Each room contains about 43-49 puzzles each. So in silhouette mode alone you have plenty of puzzles to complete, but the difficulty increase is non-existent. I noticed no differences between each level, just different shapes to chose from. This my only gripe about silhouette mode. Perhaps giving me different pieces to use might've made things more interesting, but it really isn't something that hinders the experience.

The next mode is Time Pressure, which is rather self explanatory. It's the same exact layout as Silhouette mode, only with a 3 minute time limit. Once you've beaten silhouette mode, it's rather ridiculous for them to give you 3 minutes to solve each puzzle again. I was able to complete a few of them in less than 30 seconds, however, others did take me the full 3 minutes(but not a lot). Having the exact same puzzles from Silhouette Mode to solve in three minutes wasn't a whole lot of fun, to be honest. Maybe giving us the option to change the timer to, say, one minute or even thirty seconds would've been nice.

Next up is 7 Steps. This is easily the most challenging and difficult mode. In 7 Steps mode, you start out with 7 steps for each puzzle. You can touch a piece however many times you wish, but once you touch a different one 1 step is taken away. Trial and error is out of the question. You must be perfect with every move you make or else you'll fail. Watching the top screen countdown the number of steps you have left is rather stressful and intimidating at times. But again, you're given the exact same puzzles as before so it isn't all that hard if you've just completed a few rooms in Silhouette Mode. If I were to make a sequel to this game, I'd get rid of Time Pressure mode and combine it with 7 Steps, leaving an open spot for an all new mode. Now that would be stressful.

The final mode is multiplayer, which is decent but nothing extraordinary. It's a rather simple concept: solve the puzzle(s) before the other player does(only supports one additional player). However, there's an added twist: you can see what the other player is doing. If there was ever a time for screen-looking, this is it. Not only do you see how far ahead or behind the other player is, but you can also pick up a few clues as to how he/she is solving it in case you're stumped.

Besides the four game modes you also have an achievements room. In the achievements room, it shows you what percentage of each mode you've completed thus far. It also allows you to see how well you do in each puzzle category, such as plants, animals, people, ect. It's a nice feature which you don't often see in many puzzle games nowadays.

Finally, you have the options menu. The options menu also goes one step further in that it allows you to chose what color scheme you want. White and blue hard on the eyes? Then you have 10 different schemes to chose from. You can also turn on/off the navigational arrows when controlling a puzzle piece.   The last two options are for the sound. There are 6 different "tunes" you can listen to while solving a puzzle, along with a random and mute option as well. You can also turn off the sound effects.

One thing that does bother me about the game is that it's stylus-control only. The D-pad and A, B, X, Y buttons serve no purpose whatsoever. I thought at least I could use them when navigating the main menu, but this isn't so.  I also have difficulty controlling the smaller pieces at times. If I want to rotate a piece, it'll sometimes just move it to the left or right. It's an annoyance that occurs every once in a while, but doesn't hinder the gameplay at all.

In summary, Neves is a great game if you ever have time to waste. It isn't a must-have for DS owners, but it is a nice addition, especially if you're into the Brain Age and Big Brain Academy games. It has its flaws, but they certainly don't hurt the overall gameplay experience.

Presentation: 7.0

Sound: 6.0

Gameplay: 7.5

Lasting Appeal: 6.0

Overall: 7.0/10