The APPera

**WIN A COPY OF THIS HIGHLY RATED GAME FOR FREE!**

Sure you’ve had enough iPhone platformers right? No! Just try to resist the urge to buy this next one…

Soosiz ($2.99)

With Rolando 2 and Gomi being two of the best iPhone platformers, one would think you’ll be crazy to create another one. Touch Foo doesn’t seem any bit threatened as they create an epic game that most surprisingly fuses both games to create another iPhone classic.

Presentation

We’re not one to pull comparisons off our behinds so let’s try and justify our claim through out the review. The main gameplay setup reminds us of Gomi in a way that it encompasses a 360 degree world. The art style however has crisper colors and rendering which screams Rolando 2.

As the story goes,  one rather large family of these strange little creatures were having an early lunch in the ancient magical woods, when an ancient evil lurking in the woods was awaken. The civilization was scattered and all the world was laid to ruin. All the little creatures were thrown off the planet and were lost. All except one, and he has to go on a journey to save his friends.

On top of that, the gameplay is comparable to Super Mario. You need to jump on your enemies, and one of the neatest touches is the music. It’s piano reigned, with a bit of electric guitar to it which I really liked. It gives the game a nice beat that keeps you focused.

Controls

Unlike both games mentioned in comparison, Soosiz is completely touch controlled (instead of tilt). You get two buttons on the left hand side for moving left and right.

The left button has the jump button. Hold it longer for higher jump. Pretty much everything else is a combination of three buttons. The game does a rather good job of explaining the controls like the maximize button per se.

Gameplay

Just like Gomi you are controlling a character who jumps from platform to platform and goes around in circles. The levels start off with a goal of just collecting coins and jumping on enemies. However as the game goes on, more obstacles get thrown at you.

One particular obstacle we liked is (a hat toss to Rolando 2) collecting your kids all over the level to shoot for the gold medal. More pleasantly, some of your kids carry special bonuses like high jump (ninja kid), and extra life (heart shaped lollipop carrying soosiz).

There are 7 worlds, each with a good amount of levels in it.  The visuals often change, whether you are above or under ground, and they change within the same world sometimes, and definitely change in new worlds.

Soosiz is very gravity defying, like you can jump off the spot you just climbed to. Some levels have hidden sections like once I fell to a spot, and it was a hidden spot filled with coins (Loco Roco anyone). Lastly, you can unlock blue coin challenges, which are levels with a time limit that you rush though getting as many coins as possible.

Suggestions

We feel the scoring system needs some tweaking. Correct us if we’re mistaken but the medal system only seem to rely if you collected all kids per level or not. We know the coins collected unlock special Blue coin levels, but we think it’s best to provide scores taking coins, life and kids into account.

Checkpoint system would be another welcome addition specifically for boss levels. Another thing the game needs is unlockables. Much like with platformers before Soosiz, unlockables/customizations are integral to the core gameplay.

Conclusion

We’ve said it over and over and over how we like Rolando 2 and Gomi (and think they’re two of the bests). Soosiz managed to beat all odds and catapult itself to now THREE of the iPhone’s best platformer levels.

Different shoes fit different sizes. You may like one of the three platformers in contention as one of the best, but you gotta admit. Soosiz is able to position itself against the other two. Gems like this frankly keeps us going and to Touch Foo goes all the credit!

Contest

Provide suggestions as to how the game can be made more epic based on what you learned from the review. Suggest some new powerups or bonus kids (zombie kid not allowed). The best suggestion possibly to be picked by Touch Foo themselves WIN A FREE COPY OF THE GAME!

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