It’s interesting, the lack of puzzles games that manage to give puzzle lovers a challenge, and Tetrobot & Co. does a great job doing that with intelligent puzzles and a great level design. And the objective here is pretty simple: you need to clear your patch to the end while avoiding a variety of obstacles.
In order to reach this goal, you can pick up to six blocks that are in your patch and trow them later, but there’s still a limit to that; it’s limited to your left or to your right (horizontally). If you make a mistake, you can always rewind the time, allowing you to try different ways. Since you can get stuck on a wall of water or inside a laser, this is really a pleasant feature.
Since puzzles are quite long, the parts of the level are divided into areas (like the The Legend of Zelda’s dungeons for a quick example), adding more challenge since you need some planning and memory work: tools you need in one area can be needed in another too.
While this sounds pretty simple, there’re many types of blocks and elements that make the experience more varied. Some of the elements you will find are cannons (they can be mobile or fixed), different types of switches and devices, pipes (needed to connect the areas) and even teleporters in the later levels.
There are also plenty of different types of blocks, most of them with different characteristics. Once you use them for the first time, you will have access to know their properties, so be sure to read them! The only thing all the blocks have in common is the ability to stick to another block of the same material.
Tetrobot & Co. is broken on eight zones with five levels per zone and each level includes three pieces of memory blocks (where you can pick up separately or together). Each separate piece allows you to unlock more worlds in order to progress the game including unlockables, and picking them up together allows you to have a “perfect” status for the level and also, access to a 100% status.
Each zone also have a sixth level where you can find a key, needed to unlock both boss levels. Despite being special levels, they play similar to the normal ones: in the key levels you need to get the key in order to beat the level, and in the boss levels, you need to hit the giant enemy with three blocks in order to reach the exit.
The last thing I will mention are the controls: you can use the touch screen to play, you can use buttons with the Gamepad or the Pro Controller and also, with a Wii Remote using the sensor bar. The controls work great (my favorite is using the touch screen); the only flaw I can find is the path-finding can be a little annoying in a few levels if you dislike long distances, but this is just a minor inconvenience.
Tetrobot & Co. does great graphically, and while it’s simple technically, it uses high quality illustrations and it plays at a smooth 60 frames per second. The soundtrack is also great including a good variety of well done songs, even if a few songs use pretty high notes that can be annoying if you listen without a headphone.
The presentation of the game is excellent, featuring a complete manual, a good quantity of control options, a large quantity of levels and a well-done interface, including plenty of unlockables featuring great quality work.
Conclusion:
This is a great puzzle game and should not be skipped for puzzle fans… or any other Wii U user. The level design is excellent, the presentation is marvelous and the quantity of levels is great, where you will need at least 8 hours in order to finish every level. Oh, and it’s $9.99.
