Thursday, April 05, 2007
Review of Bonbon Quest
Artemus and Hannah are two little wizards who seem to have had their sweets stolen by the undead! Of course, it’s the player’s job to help them recover the stash as they journey through 54 levels of platforming action.
This game seems rather generic until the realisation hits that, a lá the original Mario Brothers or Bubble Bobble, the screen doesn't have boundaries – basically, if you walk off the left, you come back in on the right, and similarly with the top/bottom.
This means that, as well as engaging in tricky head-bouncing navigation of enemy-infested clusters of sweets, it’s always necessary to sit back and consider how to access some seemingly unreachable areas. Often, by falling off the bottom of the screen, you can reach an area up top, or bouncing off an enemy off right can, if timed correctly, end up in being catapulted to a platform up left. It’s compulsive stuff, and many levels take the system into fine consideration with some devious tests of skill.
To match its sweet-collecting premise, the game looks and sounds suitably kiddified, with huge, nicely animated sprites and colourful backdrops working together to create a comical Halloween theme. Skeletons, ghosts, bats and spiders all trundle around on fixed courses, patrolling the large amounts of sweets, collection of which is required to complete a level. Even platform game clichés are nicely affected by the spooky atmosphere, with pumpkins acting as springboards to higher platforms and cauldrons teleporting Artemus and Hannah around the level. Mysterious, but strangely upbeat, background music punctuates the theme of each new world, ranging from castles to forests and graveyards. Everything just oozes cute, and is sure to appeal particularly to younger gamers.
Bonbon Quest is a solid, no-nonsense piece of platforming “collect ‘em up”, offering a generally slow-paced blend of thought and action. With more than enough levels to keep a player occupied, and a constantly fresh challenge as the levels become more complex, the process never becomes truly tired. While originality is perhaps questionable, Bonbon Quest reproduces a classic platform approach with relatively modern quality. With its simple gameplay, entertaining and bold graphics and nicely pitched difficulty level, this game seems a perfect choice for the younger gamer, though that isn’t to say everybody shouldn’t give it a look.
6/10
Download the demo version of the game Here
Copyright © 2006 Peter Michael Gothard
This game seems rather generic until the realisation hits that, a lá the original Mario Brothers or Bubble Bobble, the screen doesn't have boundaries – basically, if you walk off the left, you come back in on the right, and similarly with the top/bottom.
This means that, as well as engaging in tricky head-bouncing navigation of enemy-infested clusters of sweets, it’s always necessary to sit back and consider how to access some seemingly unreachable areas. Often, by falling off the bottom of the screen, you can reach an area up top, or bouncing off an enemy off right can, if timed correctly, end up in being catapulted to a platform up left. It’s compulsive stuff, and many levels take the system into fine consideration with some devious tests of skill.
To match its sweet-collecting premise, the game looks and sounds suitably kiddified, with huge, nicely animated sprites and colourful backdrops working together to create a comical Halloween theme. Skeletons, ghosts, bats and spiders all trundle around on fixed courses, patrolling the large amounts of sweets, collection of which is required to complete a level. Even platform game clichés are nicely affected by the spooky atmosphere, with pumpkins acting as springboards to higher platforms and cauldrons teleporting Artemus and Hannah around the level. Mysterious, but strangely upbeat, background music punctuates the theme of each new world, ranging from castles to forests and graveyards. Everything just oozes cute, and is sure to appeal particularly to younger gamers.
Bonbon Quest is a solid, no-nonsense piece of platforming “collect ‘em up”, offering a generally slow-paced blend of thought and action. With more than enough levels to keep a player occupied, and a constantly fresh challenge as the levels become more complex, the process never becomes truly tired. While originality is perhaps questionable, Bonbon Quest reproduces a classic platform approach with relatively modern quality. With its simple gameplay, entertaining and bold graphics and nicely pitched difficulty level, this game seems a perfect choice for the younger gamer, though that isn’t to say everybody shouldn’t give it a look.
6/10
Download the demo version of the game Here
Copyright © 2006 Peter Michael Gothard
