It’s charming, colorful, fun, and engaging, but it ain’t easy

by Shaan Ali Khan

Fun factor: Fun

Worth to: Buy

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure -- a game for any fan of platformers, action, or snide British lunacy.

Ah, the Platformer -- such an iconic image of our medium. So many have come and gone; some have stuck, and some have faded beyond memory. But we can all agree that the ones that have stuck managed to retain some timeless charm that made them classics. Well, it’s time for a new classic. Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure aims to sit amongst the epitome of the Puzzling Adventure genre, while also merging with puzzle games like Tetris Attack. The result is an excellent Platformer that not only provides a lot of fun, but deserves to sit amongst all-stars like Mario, or Megaman.

Whacky Puzzle-Adventure-Platforming

As the title suggests, you play as Henry Hatsworth, an old Englishman that is feeling his days of treasure hunting might be coming to a close. That is until his young understudy tells him of the legend of a magical golden suit, and a realm filled with gobs and gobs of treasure. And so you set off on a race against your sniveling rival to collect all these fine garments so that you may become the best-dressed gentleman there has ever been. If you think that sounded sort of ridiculous, good. That’s sort of the point. The game has an absolutely fantastic sense of humor, and has a wacky cast of characters that you’ll certainly find endearing. It almost has a Tim Schafer-quality to its story, and that only means you’re bound to get some good laughs out of this.



The platforming isn’t anything revolutionary. On the top screen, you’ll control Henry, leaping around, doing wall jumps, ducks, and attacking monsters. However, the big twist is the puzzle element. When you slay a monster or gather an item, they will turn into a tile on your bottom screen. Press a button, and you’ll switch to the lower screen where you’ll have to match three colored tiles together. You can only shift tiles horizontally, and they’ll slowly continue to rise to the top of the screen. If an enemy tile reaches the top of the screen, they’ll return from the dead as a menacing block and start attacking you.

Managing the two screens is the key to success, as doing so will grant you with special abilities or power-ups, sometimes saving your life. It might feel a bit awkward having to switch between the two modes fairly often, but it will quickly become second nature. Destroying tiles will also fill your special meter which you can use to pull off special attacks, or to even turn you young again and give you additional hearts.

I never said it would be easy

The platforming element itself may not offer too many new ideas, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t well-crafted. If anything, it’s nothing short of excellent. While certainly starting off simple enough, the game doesn’t take long to really start challenging you, requiring you to utilize your platforming agility to maneuver through some pretty tight spots and locate secret areas. While playing, it almost had a Megaman-like feel to it... that is if Megaman was a cocky old British gent with a monocle.

Combat also plays a pretty important role. You’ll be able to do the standard slashes and downward stabs, but the game also allows you to juggle your enemies, letting you milk them for diamonds and jewels for as long as you can. It feels pretty satisfying, and there’s just the right amount of “umph” to the combat to keep it satisfying.



Your special meter will let you pull off special attacks as well, but if totally full, tapping the touch screen will initiate ‘Tea-time’ which will power Henry up with a golden robotic suit for a short period of time as he kicks copious amounts of monster tail. Obviously, grounding itself in realism is a very important part of the game…

One thing that might turn a lot of people off, however, is the difficulty. While certainly funny, fun, and very well-crafted, it doesn’t take long for the game to really start turning up the heat. Having to navigate through falling platforms while dealing with some really tough enemies is definitely going to ask you to step up your game, and while an old school gamer like me may enjoy this and find it refreshing, someone else is bound to get frustrated by it.

It doesn’t help that levels can feel as if they’re starting to go on forever. It’s one thing to keep dying in a stage, but when it takes a good long while to get back to where you died, only to fail again, it can be downright irritating. Breaking the levels up would have probably paced it out a bit better, and made it a bit more reasonable for portable play. But as a result, you know you will have a lot of playtime with this just due to how many times you will fail.

Grunting done right

The game’s presentation is excellent for the platform, and it’s a real treat to look at. Boasting a lot of strong color use, you have one gorgeous-looking 2D game. It’s accentuated by the really strong animation of both Henry Hatsworth, and the other characters.



Music fits the tone of the game, and the sound effects really compliment the visuals well. Some people may complain about the gibberish-talk in cutscenes as opposed to actual spoken dialogue, and I was going to. But that was until I thought about it. Really, the random grunts from characters actually fit in well, and are even part of the whole gag in the case of some characters. So personally, this isn’t something I think I would have changed.

There are plenty of upgrades you can purchase or earn, such as the ability to breathe underwater, or increase the length of how long you can stay in puzzle-mode. But there’s not much reason to really go back and replay levels beyond scouting out secrets you may have missed. You will likely have gained almost everything by the end of the game, so this may be one you put down for a long time after beating.

Summary

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure is a unique blend of two genres -- Puzzling Adventure -- but while it doesn’t radically reinvent anything, it integrates the two so well that you are bound to be hooked. It makes great use of the two-screens, and really is an experience that you could only have on the DS. The great sense of humor, the tight controls, and solid platforming all balance and complement each other. And while the higher levels of difficulty may turn inexperienced players off, old school fans will enjoy the challenge. This really is one of the must-have games on the system, and if you are a fan of platformers, it will be quite the adventure for you, indeed.