Review: Honeycomb Beat (NDS)

Maybe it’s just Gamestyle showing its age, but puzzle titles are starting to feature more and more regularly in its play list. Sure, we’re still more than happy to save the planet from Armageddon, rescue princesses from evildoers and shoot people in the face over Live, but there’s always time for a good puzzle. There isn’t exactly a shortage of titles available for taxing the mind, but there’s always room for something interesting and different. Sadly, Honeycomb Beat doesn’t fall in to either category.

In puzzle mode the idea of the game is to change all the hexagonal shapes on the playing field to the same colour by tapping them with the stylus. When you tap one, each hexagon touching it will also change colour. The player has so many moves (or “beats”) in which to do this, so figuring out the correct order to flip honeycombs is the hook. It sounds simple, and it is to begin with. The first thirty or so of the 200 puzzles on offer ease the player in, offering a gradually increasing challenge. Things suddenly become trickier by the inclusion of modifiers which alter the direction honeycombs flip. This makes for some frustrating puzzles before you’re even halfway through the game, as challenges can often seem too obscure and tend to fall between easier levels. These frequent difficulty spikes can grate - Gamestyle had to take many breaks during play through for fear of completely losing its temper and hurling the DS through a window.

The other mode on offer is “Evolution”. Here you have to clear a rising stack of honeycombs by making lines of the same colour. Once the playfield fills up, it’s game over. This is a much more attractive proposition than puzzle mode, requiring quick thinking and adding a sense of urgency in the same way  most other classic puzzle titles do. There’s room for improvisation here, allowing the player to set up pieces to clear multiple lines at once. The direction modifiers appear here to, but with the freedom you’ve been given, they play a more interesting role. After each level is completed (or lost), the player is told where they feature in the evolutionary scale. Thanks to titles like Brain Training,  it seems we must always be compared to something (in our first case a jellyfish) to be told how good or bad we are at the game. What’s wrong with high scores?

Puzzle games aren’t always renowned for their presentation -their main requirement to rely on function over aesthetic -but so much of Honeycomb Beat seems superfluous. While you’re playing, the top screen is dedicated to a trance-like background, all swirling shapes and graphic equalisers. More can be unlocked as you progress, yet all look like dull screensavers, and seem like a waste of time. Evolution mode could have had a larger playing field spanning both screens, but these backgrounds are nothing more than filler. This is joined by J-pop/dance music that wouldn’t seem out of place in Ridge Racer’s menu screen. According to the description of Honeycomb Beat, it’s a “music driven puzzle game”. Gamestyle can confirm this is not really the case. It just happens to be a puzzle game with music. In our opinion this is another missed opportunity.  Tying the music in with the actions on screen would have added a little interest to gameplay. Just look at Q Entertainment’s titles such as Lumines.

So, does it get you thinking? Yes, it does. Will you care? Probably not. The idea is simple, and that’s always good for a puzzle game, but there is a complete lack of depth or addictiveness here. Out of the two modes, Evolution is more enjoyable, but only for a while. Puzzle mode is so full of problems it really lets the package down. If there was some kind of multiplier bonus for clearing lines to the beat of the music in Evolution mode, or maybe even a Wi-Fi battle option we would have been a little more enthusiastic about this title. As it is, there’s little to keep you coming back for more, and your money is better spent elsewhere. Average at best.

Rating: 5 / 10

Words by Dan Gill