Art Style: Aquia

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What’s the Story?

One of the launch titles available through DSi Shop (the Nintendo DSi's online store) ART STYLE: AQUIA is a traditional block-shifting puzzle game. Players begin the game confronted with a narrow column of blocks composed of various colors. The object is to shift similarly-hued blocks into groups of three or more to make them disappear. You do this by pushing new groups of blocks into the tower. However, when you press a new group of blocks into one side of the tower, a corresponding number of blocks is pushed out of the other side. These blocks become the new blocks in play, and you must push them back into the tower at a new point of entry. Play continues this way until players clear a set number of blocks, thus finishing the level, or a shadow that slowly spills down from the top of the screen covers the entire tower, ending the game.

Is It Any Good?

Aquia is simple in concept, but its puzzles can be quite challenging. On the easiest settings players contend with pushing a pair of vertically oriented blocks into a tower composed of just a few different block colors, but on harder settings they'll be forced to deal with a four-by-four square of blocks, many more block colors, and a much faster moving tower shadow, all of which combine to make things far more difficult. Unfortunately, increased challenge doesn't necessarily equal increased longevity. Aquia can become tedious rather quickly, due mostly to the fact that there are no long term goals. For puzzler lovers, it's worth five dollars, but don't expect to get weeks of entertainment out of it.