There’s about a billion puzzle games for different consoles right now. The most funs however are the retro ones.

ChuChu Rocket! (iPhone: $2.99 | iPad: $4.99 )

Yep that’s right! The early birds sometimes still get more play than current gen puzzles. ChuChu Rocket! is unleashed from SEGA as fun as every, but with a super cool multiplayer feature to boot!

Presentation

For a remake, graphically the game isn’t too hot. You have a grid in all the levels, colors being the only thing visually varying. Scattered depending on the level are cats and rockets. These are represented by slightly 3D models. While they aren’t too hot, they get the job done and keep the style of the original ChuChu Rocket.

Controls

DreamCast meets touchscreen. The controls are perfect for the touchscreen of the iPhone and iPad. You have a grid of tiles. To place one you tap and swipe in the direction you’re placing the tile.

Gameplay

Most iOS gamers are probably reminded of Chuck the Ball when they see this, since the concept of the game is the same. But ChuChu is more insane in the sense the enemies move, and you have way more than one character to control.

The ChuChus and KapuKapus are dumb, so they’ll just walk their course, hitting walls and moving with whatever is in front of them. Your job is to place arrow tiles that will direct the ChuChus to the rockets, and to keep them away from KapuKapus.

Luckily there is no time limit, just take your time planning it out and press the start button when you feel you’re ready. Puzzle Mode is where it’s at, with 100 levels with escalating difficulty.

Challenge Mode takes away the relaxed gameplay and gives you a time limit to solve the puzzles, and the ChuChu’s are set in motion immediately, you having to place the tiles in realtime. The last mode is Multiplayer, which is just ridiculous when you get going. You can have up to four players, and hey, why not?

Suggestions

To make suggestions about this game is like saying PAC-MAN isn’t fun. I wish the iPhone version was more graphically attractive. Though the puzzle mechanics is a classic, I still would have loved to see an “updated graphics” mode.

Conclusion

ChuChu Rocket will bring back memories to those gamers who actually played the original game. For those who haven’t this is still a catchy puzzler that you’ll fall in love with really quickly. I highly recommend it.