This game isn't Tetris, it's much better. Give it a try and you won't regret it.
Story:
Believe it or not, this game has a story. It isn’t very elaborate but it’s just what you need. If it were any longer you would be distracted from the game and if it were any shorter it couldn’t be considered a story. The story is the one of the universe. Somewhere in space a planet called Meteo is created. This planet sends meteors (called Meteos) to other planets in order to destroy them. Its ultimate purpose is to extinguish all life in the universe. By chance a planet discovers how to ignite the meteos before they reach their land and send them back into space. By grouping the meteos they can send them away from their planet. With the support of all the planets in the universe they make a spaceship named Metamo Ark to go to planet Meteo and destroy it, hence saving the universe. The story is passable even if you find that some parts of it do not make much sense. Every time you beat story mode in the game you will get a different ending that is selected at random. Some are good endings, others are apocalyptic.
Gameplay:
The gameplay in this game is very complex and it would take me pages to explain it fully. Basically meteos fall from the top of the screen and accumulate at the bottom. You can group meteos of the same kind (air, fire, H2O, soil, iron, zap, herb, zoo, glow, dark, soul and time) by moving them up and down the screen (you cannot move them sideways). If you group three or more meteos of the same kind they ignite and rocket upwards. You can group meteos horizontally and vertically. If they have enough energy they will leave the atmosphere of the planet (the top of the screen) and be destroyed, if not they will fall back down. Meteos that have been ignited lift all the meteos accumulated on them when they fly off, hence destroying all the meteos they lift. If there are many meteos accumulated on top of the meteos that have been ignited, it will be harder for these to lift everything up due to the total weight. The power of the meteos when ignited depends on which planet they are on. The gravity of the planet also affects how fast they fall back down. When piles of meteos are falling back down you can ignite meteos within the pile and they will go shooting back up. There are many items which fall randomly that affect your game such as bombs and hammers that destroy your meteos. If there are too many meteos on the screen the planet will be destroyed. After some time it seems to be raining meteos and the game becomes much more frantic and fun. The first few attempts to play this game are really hard but when you get the hang of this game, it becomes much easier, almost instinctive, to play it.
Graphics:
The graphics are simple, yet good. You shouldn’t expect something too complicated graphics. They are clean and the frame rate is smooth as can be but they will not make you stare at them. The game’s interface is imaginative and intuitive, as you can change it to fit your mind. While playing you see a background behind the falling meteos. These backgrounds are unique for every planet and look gorgeous, although they are quite simple and are not animated. However on the top screens you see the image of the planets you are fighting against and the people of your planet dancing as you ignite meteos and send them shooting across the top screen. Again the little people dancing are different for every planet. The meteos are clearly visible although there is sometimes some confusion between the common dark meteos and the rare time and soul meteos. What is impressive is that the meteos have a larger/smaller trail depending on how fast they are falling. So at the beginning they have no trail at all and at the end they have these huge trails and the fire meteos look like fire arrows falling from the top of the screen. The opening trailer looks amazing considering this is a DS game. It tells the story of the game and shows you a little narrative of what is happening. I was really impressed the first time I saw it and watch it every time I play this game. What’s best concerning the graphics in this game are all the little details that make each planet better. Every planet has their own theme (cloud, techno, volcano, jungle and even an astonishing horror movie themed planet that is my favorite), and the background, shape and inhabitants of the planet are in accord with it.
Sound:
The sound is definitely the best part of Meteos. The music and sound in Meteos are not complicated but are outstanding. They are really gripping, and are in perfect harmony with the planet they represent. The opening and end theme songs are also very well done. The noises that accompany the launch of meteos into the atmosphere are different on each planet and it is easy to understand that this is the same team that made the game Lumines for PSP. All the sounds are engaging and do not ruin the atmosphere as sound does in most games do but create an atmosphere all by themselves. They enhance the game so much that it would be difficult to imagine playing Meteos in mute. You would be missing such an important part of the game. The speakers of the DS, although they are great and more powerful than the ones of the PSP, sometimes lack of the quality that the music in this game can give and it’s worth plugging your headphones to fully enjoy the scope of the sounds you hear while you play. There is also a sound room option which is a great add-in to the game. I’ve spent hours listening to meteos music with my headphones and working on something else while my DS was constantly on and that I was on Meteos’s sound room. I wish that the developers would have been a bit more consistent when making the sounds, as the music of some planets are much better than the repetitive sounds of others. However this problem is only minor as the music is affected by the way you play, and that you switch from one planet to another so fast that you sometimes will not even notice that the music of one planet is dull and repetitive compared to the previous one.
Value:
If you want it, Meteos’s replay value is infinite. It’s fun just playing this game over and over again. The concept is just so innovative that you never get bored. You easily find yourself spending hours playing this game trying to increase your high score per planet. To do so there are many different modes to play in. There’s the Simple mode where you choose the planet you want to play on and your enemies. You can choose whether you want to make it a time trial or have a certain amount of lives. You can also make teams between the planets. There’s Star Trip, the game’s story mode, which has in its turn three different modes: straight, branch and multi. In straight you go directly from one planet to another, in branch you choose which planet you want to go to and in multi you are given a challenge to complete during your game. If you complete the challenge then you get to choose which planet you want to go next and if you fail the computer automatically chooses for you (it always seems to choose the hardest one). There’s a Time War mode where you can choose whether you want to accomplish a 2:00 time war, a 5:00 time war, a 100 meteo war or a 1000 meteo war. And last but not least there’s the deluge mode which is the high score mode by excellence. Basically the meteos never stop falling and they become more numerous and faster as time passes. Your aim is to launch the highest amount of meteos possible and stay alive for the longest time. What makes Meteos one of the best puzzle games ever is that it’s a very rewarding game. The more you play, the more it rewards you by letting you unlock new planets to play with, new in-game items and new tunes to listen to in the sound room. It’s very simple; every meteos you destroy is counted and added to your total amount of meteos destroyed for that kind. You can fuse these meteos to unlock new stuff; simple yet easily addictive. The amount of things that you can unlock is huge. It will take you hours to unlock everything, and once you’ve done that you will still be playing to improve your high scores and for the sheer fun of playing this game. When you add the multiplayer to all of this, Meteos truly becomes a game that you will pick up, and never put down again.
In conclusion Meteos is one of the best puzzler games ever made since Tetris and will get you addicted on your first try. There’s so much to do that this game will keep you playing it for hours without you even noticing. Even if you are not a puzzle game fan (I wasn’t one before I played this game for the first time), you should give this game a try, and you will soon see just how wrong you were not to be interested in puzzle games. There’s no escaping, but why attempt to do so? It’s just so much fun giving in to this game’s addictiveness.