SCORE:
Visuals: 19/20
Sound: 18/20
Gameplay: 19/20
Overall: 38/40

Gamer Score

94%

One fur ball is never enough

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To start with I have to let you know that I had no idea how much of a phenomenon Emily the Strange had become. In fact when I was asked if I wanted to review this title I had thought, maybe it would be better if I were an 11-year-old Goth child. However I am so pleased that I did get the chance to play this game. I will do my best not to give away any of the plot or answer any of the puzzles but as this is a review I will have to tell you something!
So the game begins and you will be WOW’d with the graphics. OK I think WOW’d could be a bit strong, we are talking about a DS game, not some high end PC title, but having played a lot of DS titles I was very impressed with the graphics on offer, the cut scenes are the best on the DS and in game animations and palettes used to bring the many quirky worlds to life were fantastic, as was the sound used throughout the game.

So the game begins and you wake from a nightmare where you dreamt that someone has catnapped, Mystery, NeeChee, Sabbath and Miles “The Bad Kitten Club”, only to find that your strange nightmare had come true and your cats were nowhere to be found. A quick tutorial, which gets you to look around your room for the missing cats , gets you used to the controls and then you’re left on your own to explore the world. I felt very confused at this point, as I really wasn’t sure what I should be doing next, more on that in a minute. Unfortunately I don’t have a DSi and whilst exploring the room I found there was a door I couldn’t access. I was disappointed that there was a part of the game that I couldn’t play however, I should stop being a cheapskate and upgrade my DS so I cannot complain too much.
So the negatives are dealt with. Well, not quite, there were a few points throughout the game where I felt lost and confused and I felt that the dotty dots puzzles in particular were illogical. The puzzles consist of a bunch of red dots and you have to join them to create the correct pattern. The problem is that the patterns are effectively random so the answer could be any number of combinations. To make matters worse you have to use items called Oddettes, which you accumulate in various ways, to power the OddISee which is the computer you’re using to solve the puzzle on. The problem is that each time you get the wrong answer you have to use another Oddette. I found myself getting too many answers wrong for this puzzle and that the fastest way to get the Oddettes was to travel to the Fairground, play the Skate Bored mini game to get the Oddettes and travel back. I started to wonder if these shapes were something I should have recognised from the Emily the Strange universe? I didn’t know so checked the manual and in recognition of this unnecessary problem the developers have included the answers to the dotty dots puzzles in the instruction booklet. This is not the only puzzle that I had issues with but I felt that it was a problem that shouldn’t have existed.
And now the negatives really are dealt with, other than a minor issue with a couple of puzzles this game is an absolute joy. I was stumped enough to find the game a challenge but was always able to work out a solution. I have never played a puzzle game where the balance of the puzzles was worked out so well. A lot of effort has gone into this and it shows. The feel of the game world is perfectly conveyed . The world itself is strange and bewildering and the first time I found myself switching between two iterations of Emilys’ room to solve a single puzzle had me scratching my head. On that note when I finally solved the problem I was very pleased with myself and it is this sense of satisfaction that I encountered time and again when I played the game.
There are 6 different worlds that you have to solve puzzles in and as you rescue your aforementioned cats you are able to use their different talents to help you solve puzzles, if you have enough cat treats!

I am really trying not to give too much away because I want you to have the same amount of fun with this game that I did, I am really pleased that I knew very little of the Emily the Strange universe as playing the game was a great introduction to the oddness of it all .

Some of the puzzles are outstanding but most are very good, they are varied too and I never felt that I was just repeating the same puzzle with different graphics. You could be travelling between two worlds to retrieve a key, building a recorder to make sense of some flowers or you could even be playing a mini game which could see you skate boarding on a merry-go-round or firing at targets in a shooting range. There really is a lot to do and the game claims some 65 puzzles to solve, which I didn’t think sounded like a lot but there was plenty to do and the game kept me entertained for many hours.
In summary:
One of the best games I have played on the DS. The graphics are outstanding and the difficulty of the puzzles is nigh on perfect. If you like puzzle games then you would be hard pressed to find a better game than this on any games system but if you have a DS/DSi/DSi XL then this game is a must buy.

Jessica Lewis

Bristol