Inspired
by those (platformers) who came before him and fusing not just puzzling
with platforming but also humor and difficulty, Henry Hatsworth in the
Puzzling Adventure breaks new ground by not being a gimmick, but rather
it actually delivers on its seemingly hokey premise; the truth is that
Henry Hatsworth really delivers the goods on both screens.
The
game starts out as a simple platformer and slowly builds on the
repertoire of abilities that Mr. Hatsworth can use on his adventure to
assemble the fabled Golden Suit of the ages past. The platforming is
the real meat of this game and it shows by the various worlds, enemies
and most importantly, interesting and varied boss battles.
The
puzzling, taking place on the touch screen, is a very simple puzzle
game where you can only swap blocks from the left or right, no
vertical moves can be made unless a block is removed from below a
higher block. You have to match the blocks in at least 3 pairs of the same color.
The puzzling stays interesting by adding more and more
"enemy" block-types to the mix as you venture further along in the
story and keeps adding them all the way til the very end. The puzzling is very important, as you build energy for using
ranged and special attacks with it, it can restore your health, it can
hurt enemies with various power-ups, and most awesome of all, if you
max the bar, you get to use "Tea Time," and turn into a robot that
wreaks havoc upon the enemies in the platform world. It really is
awesome!
The story is one that will actually get you to laugh
out loud, which is very rare in games today. The characters are so
completely contrived that you are almost forced to suspend your
disbelief due to the sheer whimsy of their personalities. Boss fights
bring in some great dialogue and interesting ways of building the
personality of the characters through the fights.
All around
Henry Hatsworth is a great game that deserves a sequel with or without
creator Kyle Gray. The game has it all, fun, difficulty, and
personality and intrigue. Good show indeed!
