Back in the 90s, there was a popular sub-genre of puzzle games which were usually competitive and had colorful, sometimes anime-like characters.  Some of these types of games included Tetris Attack, Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo, Puzzle Bobble, Magical Drop, Puchi Carat, and others.  Gematombe seeks to replicate those kind of games and ends up being most like Puchi Carat.  The characters featured here are based on the Greek myth about Pandora’s Box, and gameplay is a mix of Breakout and Puzzle Bobble.  It’s available on most current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

To play, you’ll move a jar left and right at the bottom of the screen and hold down a button to aim a ball.  When you release the button, the ball will fly up and hit any blocks in its way.  When it reaches the bottom, make sure to catch it with the jar.  Then the process starts over again.  Usually you will be doing things against another player, be it the CPU or another person.  If you can break multiple blocks in one run before catching it, you’ll send blocks and other obstacles to your opponent.  Miss the ball and the blocks will be lowered on your side.  You win by either clearing all your blocks or making your opponent’s blocks reach the bottom of their well.

There are several modes of play.  In Single Player, you can play an arcade mode where you go up against CPU opponents to reach a boss at the end.  Practice lets you play the game by yourself with no opponents to see how high of a score you can get.  And in Survival, you beat continuous opponents until you lose.  You can also play Versus with another player or do a Tutorial to learn how to play.

The only problem I had with this one is that it could use a little extra to make the game more substantial.  There are only six characters to play as and it just lacks that ‘secret sauce’ that Taito’s Puchi Carat and others had.  Plus, matches can be inconsistent, with some being over before you know it while others drag on.  But otherwise, this is still a perfectly serviceable action puzzler.

Kid Factor:

Gematombe is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Mild Blood.  I didn’t really notice any blood at all.  And I think the violence is only implied in the text.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, but not necessary just to play.  Younger gamers may find this one too difficult.

Tags: Game Reviews