Meteos: Disney Magic

 I've now put in ten hours (just over eight actually in-game according to the stats) on Meteos: Disney Magic. I've unlocked and beaten everything the game has to offer, and I'm ready to say that the original installment is superior to this unworthy successor in all respects. Most of the review attention seems to be going to the license and the horizontal movement, but while those both detract from the experience, I'm afraid the drawbacks to DM go deeper than that. I'll go into specifics on five places I think Q? screwed this up (and that's not to mention the fact that it only took me eight hours to 100% the card).

The typed meteos collection and fusion system is gone without replacement. You now unlock new planets (called stories here) simply by encountering them once in a story mode path. There's no need to unlock weapons any more because only two survived (small rockets and block replacement), and those two just drop randomly in every situation whether it's appropriate or not (yeah, there are rockets on the Hevendor clone). They did add a new special gauge that when filled can execute either a slowdown or a "nitro boost" that makes every ignition terminal, but your hand is slapped for touching it when it comes time to score the round. Just for using the feature you lose out on a whopping 50,000 point bonus toward total gold medal targets of around 100,000 to 180,000 points. So it's essentially only worth even having in the Vs. CPU and multiplayer modes.

The varied physics on each planet/story have lost one critical element. Namely, flicking blocks up at a launched platform from underneath no longer has any propulsion effect of any kind (though it does let you add the stragglers to the grouping). Further ruining the "each planet has unique physics" aspect of the original title, DM no longer leaves the discovery of these rules to the player. They are laid bare at the onset of each stage in plain, pithy statements.

Perhaps the biggest crime, to my mind, in this not-really-a-sequel is the utter elimination of the brilliant sound design that won the hearts and votes of many gamers in various players' choice sound awards. Not only did each planet have awesome and theme-appropriate BGM, but the sound effects were intricately tied to events and changes to environmental factors within the game. Some of these (like, say, the combo launch sounds) were really rewarding. In DM this wonderful sound design is replaced with bland sound-alike MIDI music that kinda sorta mimics the musical theme of the property to which the stage is tied (I guess the music license would have cost extra). The ingenious sound effects system is gone. You get one or two unexciting sounds per stage, and they're associated only with major events like clearing the screen.

Speaking of which... that's the real way in which the new horizontal movement rule has destroyed the original game's successful formula. Since you can now literally move any piece anywhere, the designers had to add a new challenge to compensate. They chose to make DM focus intensely on clearing the entire screen. That was a real accomplishment in the original Meteos (and a major strategy on planets like Brabbit), but here it is commonplace and downplays all other launches as not being full screen clears. Some may be OK with this shift in focus, but I think it really makes the whole experience a lot blander. There is an expert mode where horizontal movement is disabled returning you to the original rule set. Hilariously, your special gauge in this mode allows you horizontal movement again. The only thing expert about this mode, however, is that you're expected to reach the same goals that you just accomplished with free movement using only vertical moves. It serves only to remind you how much more fun the classic rules were.

And finally, yes, the license itself does suck. At 26, I'm not too old for Disney. In fact, I love Pixar's work. But tying this particular game format to a license like this feels forced at best. Each "story" (again, think planet) contrives a situation out of which you must help the characters. Most of them nominally involve something falling. These all add together into an arch-contrivance where you must put some books back in order that have fallen off a shelf. It's all really silly even when compared to launching little aliens into space to save peace loving planets from an evil planet bent on spraying matter streams at its neighbors.

OK, to be fair, they did a couple things better this time around. But even in these successes the developers found failure. For one thing, you can now have a four player wireless battle with a single copy of the game. Most of the play time on my original Meteos card came from multiplayer battles with other game owners, and I am definitely excited to let newcomers in on the fun. Additionally, the annoying slowdown and lag issues that hindered ad hoc wireless play in Meteos seem to have been completely eliminated in Disney Magic. The major oversight here, unfortunately, is that you cannot enable the "expert mode" (or old-school, if you like) in multiplayer matches even after unlocking it in single-player. For that you'll need to keep your old Meteos card handy.

The choice to use the portrait orientation was also a sound decision. This orientation definitely fits the game layout better, but as some reviewers have pointed out, the designers went on to squander in total the auxiliary screen. The terrible utilization of the second screen here is on par with hasty GBA to DS conversions like Mega Man ZX and Kirby: Squeak Squad. Adding insult to injury, they moved the "spinner" (the button that speeds up time) from the shoulder to the D-pad or action button located nearest you (depending on handedness). This forces an awkward grip on the DS where the player must pinch the system at the bottom supporting it enough to tap with the stylus. Leaving the shoulder buttons active for this function would have enabled the PDA style grip (with the thumb on the topmost shoulder button) for which most DS games using this orientation are intended.

Overall, if you're trying to decide between the two, my no contest recommendation is to pick up the original title. If you're already a fan of the original trying to decide whether to add this to your library, I will say to you that I'm not going to sell my copy. But mostly that's just because this is a popular multiplayer franchise at gaming parties I attend, and I like being able to include non-owners. And I suppose it was nice to have some fresh scenery to chew through despite most stories being direct clones of original planets. In fact, maybe matching these up should be billed as a fun feature for existing fans!