I’m hoping I can go this entire review without saying “The twist is,” or “But there’s a twist!” or “With just a twist of,” or any such obvious quip. I’m also hoping my wrist stops aching soon — Magnetica Twist is a fairly addictive little action-puzzler, controlled entirely through small rotations of the Wiimote. After a few hours of play, you can start developing a case of localized Wii-itis. The upside to that, of course, is that Magnetica Twist is the kind of game you’ll want to play for hours at a time: accessible, addictive, replayable, and challenging. Granted, it’s also a game we’ve all played a hundred times before in any number of incarnations, but thanks to a tiny handful of additions to the familiar formula, Magnetica Twist is a thoroughly enjoyable little distraction. Also, though it may weigh in at 1000 Wii Points, its modest 85-Memory-Block size makes it a fairly painless addition to your channel lineup.
Let’s get the obvious complaint out of the way first: Magnetica Twist is yet another variation on the match-three action-puzzler, where a variety of colored pieces threatens to end your game unless you can continually eliminate them by arranging them into groups of three or more (see Columns, Bejeweled, Hexic, Puzzle Bobble, etc). To its credit, the particular flavor of puzzle in this instance — pieces rolling in a spiral, single-file, towards a piece-shooting cannon in the center — is taken from Puzz Loop, a game developed by Mitchell Corporation. A little research suggests that Mitchell actually pioneered this particular setup back in 1998, pre-dating Zuma, Luxor, and other contemporaries. Given that Mitchell is also responsible for Magnetica Twist (and its predecessor, Magnetica, for the DS), the only developer Mitchell is ripping off is itself. So, that’s okay.
As action-puzzlers go, mind you, Magnetica Twist plays quite nicely. As with any match-three, the game maintains its challenge in the usual way: The simple matter of keeping ahead of the incoming pieces becomes more difficult as higher scores lead to advancing levels, making the pieces move faster and presenting additional colors, making matches tougher and board-clearing combos less likely. Eventually, the board becomes so cluttered and rapid that failure is inevitable. The base game comes in “Easy” or “Hard,” the latter of which is actually divided into Normal, Hard, and Very Hard modes. “Easy” presents the game in quick, objective-like chunks, allowing the player to “win” every so often by clearing the board completely every ten levels and starting fresh. “Hard,” on the other hand, follows the familiar arcade method of play-until-you-lose, with pieces coming at you relentlessly; the three sub-modes simply raise the rate of increasing difficulty, starting you with more colors and faster pieces right off the bat on Hard and Very Hard. Presented with cheerful, undistracting graphics (with minor Mii integration) and catchy music, the core experience that drives Magnetica Twist is competent and enjoyable, providing a solid foundation for the surprising variety of gameplay options available to the player.
The controls, as mentioned, are handled rather nicely (if painfully), the game’s title referring to the motion-sensing mechanic involved in every mode of play. The piece-cannon at the center of the screen is aimed by rotating the Wiimote, though thankfully, the controls are not 1:1. Spinning one’s hand about 120° will perform a full rotation on-screen, so you needn’t worry about having to dislocate your wrist when chasing a piece all the way around the board. After a while, the aiming process feels quite intuitive, though, as also mentioned, it also feels a little sore. Also included is a new gameplay addition to this particular archetype: The ability to lob pieces over the innermost loop of the spiral to score matches further up the chain. This small addition provides interesting elements of both strategy and reflex — the latter because there is careful timing involved in hitting one loop and not another, and the former because lobbing a piece takes far longer to do than simply shooting it, making it a decidedly risky move when the board is near failure.
Beyond the basic “survival” mode of play, Magnetica Twist also offers an objective-based “Challenge” mode, in which the player must complete twenty different missions, receiving a rating for each success based on his speed of completion. The challenges start off deceptively simple — destroy 20 pieces, destroy 50 pieces while racing a clock, destroy 30 pieces of a particular color, and so on. Before long, however, the challenges go from mundane to downright fiendish as the game throws a number of complications into the mix. A level may have barriers preventing direct shots, forcing players to use the risky lob maneuver — or even bank shots off of reflective surfaces. Players will have to survive with multiple spirals in play; the game gets extremely difficult once four lines of pieces are coming in at the same time. The game even presents actual puzzles once in a while, challenging the player to eliminate every piece on the board with a fixed sequence of shots, forcing players to look ahead and place their shots for a final chain-reaction combo. There are even “Boss” levels in the mix, though these really only amount to regular levels with invisible tracks, making it appear as though a floating entity is sending pieces at you randomly.
With a satisfying selection of game choices, it’s easy to blow through a couple of hours playing Magnetica Twist, refining one’s game and jockeying for high scores. Stat-junkies and score fiends will actually find much to love in Magnetica Twist’s records section, which delivers a surprisingly full amount of information about one’s gameplay, from highest combo and score to average shot speed and a play-style assessment. I am apparently a “Marble-Skill Lover.” Who knew? I would use this information to perhaps seek out fellow lovers if such a thing were possible — sadly, for as much score-tracking as Magnetica Twist does, there are no worldwide leaderboards or online play options, which is a shame, since the game also tracks your individual records against your multiplayer opponents.
Which brings us to the game’s multiplayer. The multiplayer options, in turn, easily double the available gameplay, providing a generous selection of both cooperative and competitive modes. The head-to-head games are as one ought to expect from an action-puzzler; clearing pieces and combos from your side will send unfavorable pieces and detritus to your opponent, with a number of power-ups tossed into the mix — limited-time alterations such as slower turning, disabled lobbing, and so on. There are a few different game boards to choose from here, and a couple of variations on the basic theme. Where the game starts to get inventive and difficult, however, is in the co-op modes. At its most basic, playing cooperatively is a matter of clearing a certain number of pieces, but it’s a delicate matter; shooting a piece into the line will cause the others to shift position, possibly disrupting your partner’s aim and ruining what could have been a magnificent combo. Truly working effectively as a team in Magnetica Twist is far harder than it looks. In addition, there are a few extra modes available here, some of which are more enjoyable than others. Combining two players into one cannon where one controls the rotation and the other fires isn’t great, but the “Fixed Colors” mode — in which each player has exclusive domain over shots of certain colors — definitely stirs things up. The game even has “Daily” challenges for a co-op team, assigning the players to a random assortment of game modes and boards, providing an excellent all-around look at the gameplay possibilities. Multiplayer is great with two players; it’s delightfully frantic (or annoyingly random, depending on if you’re losing) with three or four.
In the end, Magnetica Twist is a game that’s been done by other casual game designers for a reason: It’s a solid design, easy to jump into, and equally easy to pick up again later, time after time. Though it may cost slightly more than other recent WiiWare offerings, it stands as the ideal addition to the casual, family-friendly lineup that Nintendo has been gunning for, and the fact that it’s relatively small, size-wise, makes it an excellent game to keep around on your console for a quick play once in a while.
(If you’d like to get Magnetica Twist, maybe someone out there might give you the Wii Points so you can check it out. I’m just sayin’.)
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