Thanks to Inti Creates for the review code
Title: PuzzMiX
System: Steam
Price: $3.99
Release Date: 04/19/2024
Story
In this Gunvolt spinoff, you uh… um… Take control of Lola as she helps evolve her weapons over and over again?
Yeah there’s no plot here this is just a fun spinoff game. Based very much so on a certain puzzle game hit from a few months ago…
Presentation
Right off the bat, the similarity to Suika Game is very obvious. This is basically that game with a Gunvolt skin, and thus, it means you have a board, some balls, and a bunch of matching to do. You have a very simple menu for changing options like voiceover languages and the like, and most importantly here, you have a bunch of unlockable songs from across the Gunvolt series to pick from as background music during play.
And yeah, while the visuals may or may not do it for you depending on if you’re a fan of Gunvolt or not, (I am, but haven’t caught up on the newer entries in a while) the music is definitely the most appealing part of PuzzMiX, even for non Gunvolt fans, since a lot of it is really catchy! Most of the OST is made up of the popular vocal themes that Gunvolt is known for, and while those may or may not do it for you, I like quite a few of them, and they play all while Lola will voice act and call out each and every single match you make in either English or Japanese. No, there’s no way to disable to voices. You can swap between songs with the shoulder buttons at the very least.
By far the best song in the game though, is the instrumental track “Sword of Destiny”. This was a pretty big song from the end of Gunvolt Chronicles, and I was super happy to see this song available from the onset. This song alone is way better than whatever OST Suika Game had, without question. Really all you need to do is just pick a song, unlock some more and stick with one you especially like, and just keep playing.
Gameplay
You’d think with a new skin applied Inti would try and maybe shake things up by adding extra modes, different factors in the gameplay, or more things to do besides the bulk of Suika Game, but I’m not kidding when I say that outside of the music unlocks, PuzzMiX is so much like Suika Game to the point I can just link the review of that game to show off what I thought of the core concept. In a nutshell, PuzzMiX/Suika is a very solid loop that works wonders for pick up and play sessions, with a handy online leaderboard to climb up as high as you can.
PuzzMix has different physics than Suika, and they’re a bit weird in spots, (I mainly found trying to push aside balls by stacking objects ontop of one another to be way tougher here than in Suika, which made it a little tougher to manipulate things where I wanted them to be) but one nice benefit to PuzzMiX is that if a ball shoots out of the playfield, it doesn’t immediately end the game and you have a five second countdown to avert disaster. Very handy.
Each time you make a new high score, you’re back at it again to keep trying to best your highest score and unlock more songs with each attempt. Ultimately this is a scorechaser, and you’re probably already aware of what you need to do in order to maximize your enjoyment outta this one. My only real gripe with the scoring/leaderboards is that they don’t seem to be cross-play with the other versions of the game, which is a big shame since a unified leaderboard would really help with the competition.
Conclusion
On one hand, PuzzMiX is such a shameless clone I kinda feel the need to make people aware of that, especially if they were hoping for this to be more of a unique spin on the Suika style than something which copies it pretty darn well. On the other hand, Suika Game is not available on Steam or several consoles this game launched on, and being that I played this on Steam Deck, I can also add that PuzzMiX works great on it with no issues that I came across. You come for the scorechasing, try to climb the online leaderboards, and also try to unlock all the songs and achievements, but otherwise if you’re wanting to pick this up, it’s either because you want more Suika likes and can’t get enough of them, or are seeking an alternative due to Suika Game not being on Steam or Xbox or whatever. Or you’re a major scorechaser and really want to climb that leaderboard
Well, cloney as it might be, PuzzMiX a darn good one, and I found the brief timer before you lose the game to make PuzzMix a lot more forgiving with the bounces than Suika, so this is at least one I can definitely recommend, either for if you like the Gunvolt series, great music, or just decent puzzlers in general and don’t have access to the other game.
Of the Suika clones I’ve dabbled in, I ended up really liking PuzzMix the most, and that has to mostly come down to the music and core gameplay remaining great as ever. Still, with how much personality the Gunvolt series has to offer, I really wish it was bold enough to try some new mechanics.
I give PuzzMiX a 6 out of 10.