My head hurts…
These puzzles can’t be this difficult can they? Sometimes I’m left feeling really dumb and wondering if I’m the only one that’s just not good at this game.
Energy Cycle Edge
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch
Release Date: 5/12/2018
Players: 1
Age Rating: 3+
Genres: Puzzle
Developer: Sometimes You
Price: £4.19
Energy Cycle Edge is a sequel to Energy Cycle developed by Sometimes You. Think of a digital Rubik’s cube and that’s what some of the levels of Energy Cycle Edge are similar to in later levels.
What do you do?
To put it simply, you need to match all the cells of a puzzle field to the same colour to complete the level. It sound’s reasonably simple right?
The puzzle grid will begin with lines of cells coloured in one of three different colours. You activate a cell in the puzzle field and it will change the colour of the cell and any adjacent cells in a straight line. You can switch the cell three different colours and the task at hand is to make all the cells in the puzzle grid the same colour.
As the game progresses the puzzles start to become three dimensional, so you need to ensure you switch between views of the puzzle grid when changing the cell colour to ensure you aren’t fluffing up any progress you had made on another side of the puzzle field.
Simple? No, this game is not.
Puzzles… How many?
44, there are 44 puzzles here for you to try and crack. Ranging from what is I assume the easier tier puzzles where you don’t need to rotate the puzzle field as there aren’t additional dimensions to worry about, to some ridiculously intimidating dimensional puzzles.
I will openly admit, I haven’t come anywhere near cracking the puzzles in this game. I had a good stab at the first tier of puzzles and found I was hitting a mental brick wall on even these. I out of curiosity loaded puzzles from around 30 on-wards to see what the task at hand my look like and found myself quickly saying “No thank you!”
There is no punishment however on time taken to complete the puzzles. The game does track how long you’ve taken and even how many moves you made to complete the puzzle which you can see back on the puzzle menu screen. Great feature for sure, but also a reminder of how dumb you might be (in my case).
Look and Feel
Having never played the first game, this was all new to me. The puzzles themselves look really rather great. The cell colours are bright and vibrant and for a simple puzzle game, it is very pleasing on the eye, and like a few games I’ve played as of late, is accompanied by a perfectly fitting soundtrack.
The cursor to select cells is like a green mist, and while playing there were a few occasions where I wasn’t quite sure what cell I had selected to change and would change the wrong cell incorrectly.
If you were a fan of the previous game, you can alter the visuals of the puzzle grid and cells to that of there original look from the first game. I personally wasn’t keen on this look, so kept the look of the new version during my play through.
Pros and Cons
+ Very stylish look
+ Perfect sound track for the look of this game
+ 44 Puzzles is a heck of a lot
– The cell select cursor doesn’t quite standout that great on the grid
The Verdict
I was going to add that this game is difficult to the cons above, however I opted not to for two reasons. One, for fans of the puzzle genre, maybe this is not a con? You buy this game because you like puzzle games and want a good test I assume? With Energy Cycle Edge I’m convinced you will get just that. And two, maybe it’s not difficult at all for the puzzle game enthusiasts out there, maybe you’ll fly through the puzzles and it’s just my sheer ineptitude to complete the puzzles makes me feel that they are difficult.
44 puzzles, that visually look pleasing to the eye, with a pretty great sound track. If you are a puzzle game enthusiast, and like the first game in this series, then this game is for you.
