16
Jul
2009
Droplitz Review
Overview
Droplitz is a game developed by Blitz Arcade and published by Atlus. The game is $9.99 and is out now on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. I have to say that Droplitz took me by surprise! After browsing through the marketplace, I stumbled upon this game. Once I noticed that the publisher was Atlus, I was immediately interested and went to watch some gameplay videos. It seemed like an extremely addictively puzzler, and true me, it doesn’t disappoint.
Controls
The path making process consists of rotating circular pieces that have paths inside them. Once you align them with each other they connect to make a larger pathway. You need to plan ahead how you are going to rotate this dials because if one of the Droplitz hits a dead end you will immediately lose. There are different types of dials; they have various shapes so you need to plan which dial to rotate to be able to create the path for the Droplitz. The way the game controls is fairly intuative, you use one button to rotate the dials to the right and another button to rotate them to the left. So, not too complicated.
Graphics
Visually, Droplitz is nothing that will blow you away. This is kind of obvious considering it is a puzzle game, but the graphics are very clean and do their job making the game presentable and visually appealing. When you are making your way through the game you will see that the themes of the puzzles are constantly changing, this is pretty good because the backgrounds and the music evolve similarly to how Lumines created backgrounds and moods set to music in various stages.
Gameplay
For a 10 dollars game, Droplitz offers a lot of content. You can find four different game modes, each with different boards to play in. These different levels are made available as unlockable content that is obtained through achieving certain high scores. While the first goal is fairly easily attained, as you progress through this downloadable title, the high scores seem harder and harder to reach. The first mode is the Classic Mode, in here you only need to create paths and get a good score, as simple as that. (Well, it’s called “classic” for a reason, right?)
The second mode that you can find in Droplitz is the Zendurance Mode. This mode challenges you to last as long as you can while playing the game, and while doing so you will have to keep creating paths in order to keep your “life” meter up. When you select this mode you will be able to choose between the different themes that you have unlocked while playing the Classic game. These themes have different music and a different kind of background attributed to each of them.
The third mode is the Power-Up mode. Like the name indicates, in this mode you will get a variety of power ups that modify the gameplay. Example of these are a power up that slows down everything and help you to create the paths with more time, another type of power up is one that destroys the area where you place it, you can use these with certain dials that make your work easier.
The fourth and last mode available in Droplitz is the Infection Mode. In this mode the dials will get “infected”, and when this happens they will be harder to rotate because they slow their rotation speed down making the path-making process more difficult. You will also have the power ups at your disposal in this mode, so you have to think about how you are going to use them to keep things flowing.
The Bottom Line
8.5/10
In the end Droplitz is an incredible game, extremely addictive and fun. With a very simple gameplay mechanic, this title will steal a lot of hours from your life. If you are a puzzle fan or you only want a game to spend some time with I extremely recommend you to look into this title.