Wind and Water unpacking and first impressions



So Wind and Water Puzzle Battles showed up in the letter box this morning, so I promptly did a video of the excitement of getting a brand new Dreamcast game, showing the game's highly professional packaging as well as a quick look at the game running on the system. I'm very impressed by just how slick the presentation of both the manual and the game itself is, the Yuan Works team (all two of them!) are evidentially very passionate when it comes to making games, I hope we see more from them in the near future.

So my first impressions on the game? The story mode is the game's strongest point: you get a Super mario 3 like hub map where you'll bump into characters to chat to (two of which are based on the Yuan brothers themselves) and plenty of different mission based stages to play, that on completion open up more of the map. There is also a shop to buy items from and great little mini games to be found. The dialog between the characters in a great laugh: the game's story is based around Amy who has been deemed the task of teaching everyone how to play the game despite being a bit of a air head, while the game is still being developed around you by the Yuan brothers. One particularly amusing moment was coming across a little kid who was on his way to a RPG school, holding a giant, Final Fantasy VII like sword. There is also a arcade mode and a very clever puzzle mode where you only get one or two moves to clear all the blocks.

As for the gameplay, so far I'm finding it quite challenging at say the least. It's rather simple to get into, but deceivingly tricky once you start to get deeper into it, especially when facing CPU opponents. The game requires very quick reflexes and the ability to manipulate the blocks you swift about very strategically. Personally I tend to hold my own pretty well in puzzle games but in this case I'm getting my arse whupped. I still haven't even beaten the first opponent you need to face in the story mode yet after quite a few attempts, he just manages to throw me out of the game in seconds with his super quick maneuvers.

So at the moment I'm struggling to keep up with it but I'm going to stick with it and see if i can get better, so this game may even be able to pull me away from LittleBigPlanet for a bit, so that's something. When I said in the video the review will be by the end of the week it'll probably be more like next week as I want to play quite far through it first.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

The video's dead ! Please do something ! I eager to see some real piece of evidence about that game ! I'm waiting for mine !

Animated AF said...

It's currently processing, it should be up it a bit. =)

Unknown said...

Sorry for my overimpatience! ^^

Tom Charnock said...

Ha ha - great video there mate! Made me chuckle in places, and the game looks like it could be addictive as hell. Looking forward to the video review already...

Anonymous said...

the games looks cool and vety attractive.Its an old school puzzle game seems that it can stuck u in front of the tv for hours.

I have preorder DUX i want to make a video like it.

----Dreamcasting2008----

Caleb said...

Lovely.

The puzzle theme seems really interesting.

fatherkrishna said...

I still love it, but i can't get my playable sprtite to play... Bah again.

Neverthless Gman, a lovely review though...

Animated AF said...

Krish: have you got your code e-mailed to you yet?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the video gagaman :) I posted the link on the forum too. Hope you guys enjoy the game and if you're stuck don't forget to ask around.

Krishna: Are you having trouble with the sprite? If so let me know, I'm 100% sure that all sprites are working =D

On other news, check out our development blog for our next project! :)

Thanks

Anonymous said...

can't wait for my copy from play-asia!

Jeff said...

played a few hours so far, very cool game! I love the story mode, very personal! Looking forward to picking up any future Yuan-Works stuff! Long live the indie!

Anonymous said...

Wow!... It's great to see that the Dream is still alive. I used to have one and i lent it to someone and he messed it up, I'm buying another one. I as well might get this game :) Thanks a lot!