Iron Draggon
10-02-2005, 11:40 PM
Have you ever played one of those Labyrinth games where you have to turn the two knobs to guide the ball through the entire maze without falling through any of the holes? If you have, you know that it's not very easy, but it's alot of fun trying. Or maybe you just smashed it in frustration...
Well this game is one of those Labyrinth games on crack!
Imagine the same basic concept, but with a timer added. It's not too bad at first, because you start out with a very simple maze, and plenty of time to get the ball from one side to the other. But as you progress to more challenging mazes, it becomes a panicked frenzy trying to get the ball to the other side before time runs out. Damn that timer!
Now imagine that as you progress, all kinds of additional tasks are require besides just getting the ball from one side of the maze to the other. There are puzzles to solve, enemies to avoid, powerups to pick up, acrobatic feats to perform, and a nightmare of other chores to accomplish besides just moving the ball from one side to the other.
Welcome to Tama, the Labyrinth game from Hell! :devilish:
There are 7 worlds to conquer, each divided into several levels, and the farther you progress the more insane it gets. I made it about halfway through the game before I got to a maze that I couldn't figure out how to survive, and I ran out of continues. A strategy guide would be very helpful for me, but if there is one it's in Japanese, and I have a feeling that there isn't one for this game anyway.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Where I got stuck was well into the game, and I haven't explained everything I saw that lead up to the mysterious maze that I couldn't solve yet. So let me tell you a few things to prepare for...
Of course there's some holes to avoid along the way, which swallow your ball and spit it back out to somewhere before you encounter it, so if you lose a ball it doesn't cost you a continue, but it does cost you time. Remember, the timer is constantly ticking! Now you've lost some progress and some time by losing a ball, and you still have to get past that hole. No big deal, right? Well guess what? Later on, some of the holes move. Now you have to avoid moving holes too, and you still have to get past them somehow.
But it still doesn't sound very hard, does it? Of course not. But as new challenges are slowly added, old challenges still remain, so the game and the mazes get more complex as you progress. So how complex does it get? I don't know yet, but if what I encountered halfway through the game was any indication of things to come, I'd say that it gets impossibly complex. In fact, I'm not sure that I'll ever make it past the maze that I got stuck on. It seemed like a trap.
So let's run down the list of other things that I ran into:
There's some kind of animal that gets very upset if you run into it. From then on, it pursues you through the rest of the maze, pushing your ball in an effort to make you lose it. And trust me, you're probably better off just letting it make you lose a ball instead of trying to outrun it. You can get ahead of it, but it seems to always catch up with you, and usually at a very inopportune time. So if you can't avoid this animal, just let it take your ball, so it'll go away.
There's some other kind of animal that paralyzes your ball for a few seconds, and they appear in fairly large numbers. This isn't very good for your race against the timer at all.
There's guillotines that slice your ball in half if you don't time your passage beneath their blades correctly. This causes you to lose a ball similar to losing a ball in a hole.
There's geysers that temporarily hold your ball aloft on a pillar of water, thus slowing you down and costing you time.
There's other enemies that I don't remember now, so let's move on down the list of other stuff that you'll encounter:
Some of the mazes have moving wall sections. Thankfully they don't move on their own though. They only move when you run your ball into them, so you can use this to your advantage to avoid some of the enemies in the maze.
Some mazes have powerups that make your ball invincible for a short period of time. This comes in handy when trying to avoid enemies as well as when trying to avoid obstacles.
Some mazes have switches that you have to activate in order to clear a path to the goal. You'll be able to find these switches pretty easily though, because arrows on the floor of the maze will direct you to them. You still have to activate them all though, and some of them have to be activated in a certain order, so always follow the arrows.
Some mazes have catapults that will throw your ball to another location in the maze. This sounds like something that you'd want to avoid, but as far as I know, catapults are always friendly. They help you get to places in the maze that you can't reach any other way, so don't avoid them.
Some mazes have springs. These can either be friendly or unfriendly. The unfriendly ones bounce you further back in the maze, the friendly ones bounce you further ahead in it.
Now let's move on to some of the stunts and acrobatic feats that you'll have to perform along the way to the goal:
There's ramps to roll up, and ramps to roll down. If you don't roll fast enough, you won't make it all the way up the ramps that you must roll up, and if you roll too fast, then chances are there's some kind of trap waiting to claim your ball near the bottom of the ramps that you must roll down.
There's bridges to cross, but these usually aren't ordinary bridges. They consist of a moving platform between two bases, and you have to roll the ball onto the moving part at the right time, keep it balanced there as it moves across, then roll the ball off of the moving part at the right time.
There's little pyramids that typically appear in groups, and have a nasty tendency to cause your ball to roll out of the maze. This costs you time of course, similar to the holes.
There's some kind of magnetic floor that makes your ball extremely difficult to control. Think of the magnetic floors in Marble Madness, these floors act basically the same way.
There's other things that you'll have to navigate your way through also, but they're too bizarre to describe what they are. So let's just say that one of them is what caused me to get stuck about halfway through the game. I don't know what the hell it was, but it killed me over and over again until I ran out of deaths to feed it. Then the game ended.
Now let's talk about how you control this game. It's alot different from traditional Labyrinth games with two knobs:
The D-pad controls the direction of tilt for the maze. This sounds simple enough, until you have to rotate the maze so you can see where the ball is. The L & R buttons control the direction of rotation for the maze. Since this is a video Labyrinth game, you can't always see where the ball is as you tilt the maze like you can with a traditional Labyrinth game. So you have to rotate the maze to be able to see the ball again, and this is where your skill and dexterity will really be put to the test. It takes a little practice to get the hang of tilting and rotating at the same time, but once you get the hang of it, you'll find the controls easy to handle. You can also zoom the camera in or out with the A & B buttons, to get closer or further away from the action.
So, do you think you're ready to give this game a try? Well the bad news is, it's very obscure, and it isn't very easy to find, but once you find it, it should be dirt cheap. I only had to pay $10 for a new copy, so if you can find a used one, it should only be $5 or less. Not bad for such a great game!
Oh yeah, the music is typical puzzle game fare, and the graphics are a mix of textured and flat-shaded polygons, depending on what world you're on. The backgrounds are various sky patterns, divided up into a matrix of squares.
So like most other puzzle games, it's the gameplay that makes it or breaks it, and this game is a winner for sure. It's not quite as fast paced as it sounds, but if it was, it wouldn't be playable, so you'll be glad that it isn't quite that fast. All the rapid tilting and rotating of the maze reminded me of one of those contests where you have to solve Rubik's Cube as fast as possible. The ball never moves that fast, but the mazes do. And that makes it very surreal, as you watch the ball careen to its death in slow motion, while you remain helpless to prevent it from falling.
Overall I'd say that if you like puzzle games, you'll love this one, especially if you're looking for something unique and different. It may borrow its basic concept from an age old puzzle game from the past, but it takes that concept to amazing new heights, and it's certainly not just another Puyo-Puyo game. So if you're tired of Tetris and Columns clones, this may be exactly what you've been looking for!
Well this game is one of those Labyrinth games on crack!
Imagine the same basic concept, but with a timer added. It's not too bad at first, because you start out with a very simple maze, and plenty of time to get the ball from one side to the other. But as you progress to more challenging mazes, it becomes a panicked frenzy trying to get the ball to the other side before time runs out. Damn that timer!
Now imagine that as you progress, all kinds of additional tasks are require besides just getting the ball from one side of the maze to the other. There are puzzles to solve, enemies to avoid, powerups to pick up, acrobatic feats to perform, and a nightmare of other chores to accomplish besides just moving the ball from one side to the other.
Welcome to Tama, the Labyrinth game from Hell! :devilish:
There are 7 worlds to conquer, each divided into several levels, and the farther you progress the more insane it gets. I made it about halfway through the game before I got to a maze that I couldn't figure out how to survive, and I ran out of continues. A strategy guide would be very helpful for me, but if there is one it's in Japanese, and I have a feeling that there isn't one for this game anyway.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Where I got stuck was well into the game, and I haven't explained everything I saw that lead up to the mysterious maze that I couldn't solve yet. So let me tell you a few things to prepare for...
Of course there's some holes to avoid along the way, which swallow your ball and spit it back out to somewhere before you encounter it, so if you lose a ball it doesn't cost you a continue, but it does cost you time. Remember, the timer is constantly ticking! Now you've lost some progress and some time by losing a ball, and you still have to get past that hole. No big deal, right? Well guess what? Later on, some of the holes move. Now you have to avoid moving holes too, and you still have to get past them somehow.
But it still doesn't sound very hard, does it? Of course not. But as new challenges are slowly added, old challenges still remain, so the game and the mazes get more complex as you progress. So how complex does it get? I don't know yet, but if what I encountered halfway through the game was any indication of things to come, I'd say that it gets impossibly complex. In fact, I'm not sure that I'll ever make it past the maze that I got stuck on. It seemed like a trap.
So let's run down the list of other things that I ran into:
There's some kind of animal that gets very upset if you run into it. From then on, it pursues you through the rest of the maze, pushing your ball in an effort to make you lose it. And trust me, you're probably better off just letting it make you lose a ball instead of trying to outrun it. You can get ahead of it, but it seems to always catch up with you, and usually at a very inopportune time. So if you can't avoid this animal, just let it take your ball, so it'll go away.
There's some other kind of animal that paralyzes your ball for a few seconds, and they appear in fairly large numbers. This isn't very good for your race against the timer at all.
There's guillotines that slice your ball in half if you don't time your passage beneath their blades correctly. This causes you to lose a ball similar to losing a ball in a hole.
There's geysers that temporarily hold your ball aloft on a pillar of water, thus slowing you down and costing you time.
There's other enemies that I don't remember now, so let's move on down the list of other stuff that you'll encounter:
Some of the mazes have moving wall sections. Thankfully they don't move on their own though. They only move when you run your ball into them, so you can use this to your advantage to avoid some of the enemies in the maze.
Some mazes have powerups that make your ball invincible for a short period of time. This comes in handy when trying to avoid enemies as well as when trying to avoid obstacles.
Some mazes have switches that you have to activate in order to clear a path to the goal. You'll be able to find these switches pretty easily though, because arrows on the floor of the maze will direct you to them. You still have to activate them all though, and some of them have to be activated in a certain order, so always follow the arrows.
Some mazes have catapults that will throw your ball to another location in the maze. This sounds like something that you'd want to avoid, but as far as I know, catapults are always friendly. They help you get to places in the maze that you can't reach any other way, so don't avoid them.
Some mazes have springs. These can either be friendly or unfriendly. The unfriendly ones bounce you further back in the maze, the friendly ones bounce you further ahead in it.
Now let's move on to some of the stunts and acrobatic feats that you'll have to perform along the way to the goal:
There's ramps to roll up, and ramps to roll down. If you don't roll fast enough, you won't make it all the way up the ramps that you must roll up, and if you roll too fast, then chances are there's some kind of trap waiting to claim your ball near the bottom of the ramps that you must roll down.
There's bridges to cross, but these usually aren't ordinary bridges. They consist of a moving platform between two bases, and you have to roll the ball onto the moving part at the right time, keep it balanced there as it moves across, then roll the ball off of the moving part at the right time.
There's little pyramids that typically appear in groups, and have a nasty tendency to cause your ball to roll out of the maze. This costs you time of course, similar to the holes.
There's some kind of magnetic floor that makes your ball extremely difficult to control. Think of the magnetic floors in Marble Madness, these floors act basically the same way.
There's other things that you'll have to navigate your way through also, but they're too bizarre to describe what they are. So let's just say that one of them is what caused me to get stuck about halfway through the game. I don't know what the hell it was, but it killed me over and over again until I ran out of deaths to feed it. Then the game ended.
Now let's talk about how you control this game. It's alot different from traditional Labyrinth games with two knobs:
The D-pad controls the direction of tilt for the maze. This sounds simple enough, until you have to rotate the maze so you can see where the ball is. The L & R buttons control the direction of rotation for the maze. Since this is a video Labyrinth game, you can't always see where the ball is as you tilt the maze like you can with a traditional Labyrinth game. So you have to rotate the maze to be able to see the ball again, and this is where your skill and dexterity will really be put to the test. It takes a little practice to get the hang of tilting and rotating at the same time, but once you get the hang of it, you'll find the controls easy to handle. You can also zoom the camera in or out with the A & B buttons, to get closer or further away from the action.
So, do you think you're ready to give this game a try? Well the bad news is, it's very obscure, and it isn't very easy to find, but once you find it, it should be dirt cheap. I only had to pay $10 for a new copy, so if you can find a used one, it should only be $5 or less. Not bad for such a great game!
Oh yeah, the music is typical puzzle game fare, and the graphics are a mix of textured and flat-shaded polygons, depending on what world you're on. The backgrounds are various sky patterns, divided up into a matrix of squares.
So like most other puzzle games, it's the gameplay that makes it or breaks it, and this game is a winner for sure. It's not quite as fast paced as it sounds, but if it was, it wouldn't be playable, so you'll be glad that it isn't quite that fast. All the rapid tilting and rotating of the maze reminded me of one of those contests where you have to solve Rubik's Cube as fast as possible. The ball never moves that fast, but the mazes do. And that makes it very surreal, as you watch the ball careen to its death in slow motion, while you remain helpless to prevent it from falling.
Overall I'd say that if you like puzzle games, you'll love this one, especially if you're looking for something unique and different. It may borrow its basic concept from an age old puzzle game from the past, but it takes that concept to amazing new heights, and it's certainly not just another Puyo-Puyo game. So if you're tired of Tetris and Columns clones, this may be exactly what you've been looking for!