Doodle Hex (Nintendo DS) - Review by Chris

Introduction

The DS has been home to some weird and wonderful games over the past 4 and a half years of its life cycle and some of these have been a success and some of these haven't. Yet the mass of titles that have failed at entertaining with innovation hasn't been a put off for some developers. Here we have Doodle Hex, from developers Tragnarion Studios, which sets out to innovate in the genre of one to one battles by making use of runes and spells to defeat your opponents instead of using raw, brute force. And the end result is surprisingly good, yet quickly over complicates things.

Gameplay

Doodle Hex puts you in control of one of 14 available wizards, or Doodlers as the game calls them, as they seek to discover and achieve the ultimate prize which awaits them at the College of Runes. To achieve this prize, you'll have to battle your way through a succession of tournaments between pupils and teachers from the College, with these opponents growing ever stronger the more you dispatch before ultimately reaching your goal. This makes up the majority of what you'll be undertaking through the game's main mode titled, oddly enough, Tournament mode. It's through this that you'll progressively learn about the game's innovative battle system and get used to the insurmountable amount of runes and spell combinations that will eventually come into your possession.

Split into Bronze, Silver and Gold tournaments, you'll work through these in order. To begin with, you'll receive a relatively well put together introduction to the game's mechanics and after doing this you'll begin to think that the game's going to be easy to get to grips with. You're given access to a set number of runes and with these, you'll battle your opponent by drawing out these runic symbols in the spell circle on the touch screen, with there being both attacking and defensive runes to put together into various combinations to inflict larger amounts of damage. As well as this, you'll be introduced to the game's crude defence shield, which is utilised by holding your stylus over your avatar's picture at the bottom of the touch screen. It works, but isn't fast enough to keep up with the constant barrage of attacks which you'll be put under by your opponent. This is where the game's tutorial at the beginning of the Tournament mode fouls you into thinking the game is easy. The tutorial is over quickly and you'll think this shouldn't be too hard but the game quickly picks up pace so if you've not grasped even the basics, with the game throwing more and more at you to remember as you progress, you won't go very far. It's strange because while being an innovative battle system, it does little to ease you into its intricacies. And as you'll find the further you delve, it quickly becomes about how fast you can draw out your symbols and the combination in which you draw them to make the best use of your ever replenishing mana, which the spells use up.

Outside of the Tournament mode, there is a Challenges mode where you can take on a list of task specific challenges in the hope of unlocking the likes of more runes and combinations for each character. These challenges are specific to each of the games characters and so runes unlocked for one, will have to be unlocked for the rest as there's no carry over. It adds something to the length of the game as a result, but feels like an odd choice to tie everything down and limit them to specific characters. There's also a Quick Duel mode for you where you can take on the computer in whatever conditions you like. Finally, Multiplayer has been catered for as well, comprehensively, with you being able to battle friends using local Wi-Fi between those who have the game and even those who don't, with single cart play enabled. There's also the ability to trade extra runes you have with friends which is nice as it means you can gain access to runes you wouldn't otherwise have access to until later in the game. All in all, the game provides ample modes for you to tackle yet due to its repetitive nature, the fun wanes the more you play.

Controls

The game is controlled entirely by way of the touch screen, with none of the face buttons being used. It works well, with everything in the menus and in game being easily accessible and easily undertaken. The only issue comes about as a result of the defensive mechanism that has been implemented, which has you holding the stylus over your avatar picture at the bottom of the touch screen to produce a protective sphere but this takes a few seconds to activate and so it's not inherently reliable in the midst of some of the more difficult battles. With the game having you draw out your attacks, you'd think a similar technique would be used.

Graphics

Visually, the developers have employed a cartoony style for the visuals and it comes off well but has been done better by many other games on the console. The menus are clean and easily accessible, with little to no frills, but could have done with something to make them more interesting. Cutscenes are shown through a series of static images with some text tied to them and these show off the simple cartoony style in an altogether basic way, as if the game is trying to hurry you through to the next battle. When in battle, you'll be subjected to the same static images on the top screen through battle animations which bring nothing to the overall experience. On the touch screen, everything is cleanly designed and you won't have trouble navigating it in battle.

Sound

Music isn't particularly memorable for the game, with it providing a track for each battle based upon your opponent's characteristics or place of origin. It's not something that needed to be, but it would have been nice to have something to tied together with the often frantic pace and difficulty of the game. There are some pieces of voice work but these aren't of any particularly high standard and feel like they've been ripped from just about any of the mundane Saturday morning cartoons that clog up today's airwaves.

Dual screen

The entire game is controlled and played through the touch screen, with the top screen merely being used for in battle and out of battle static animations, which add nothing to the game other than an attempt at some humour but it doesn't work.

Final comments

Doodle Hex is both in concept and practise an interesting game to play. The battle system is definitely the keystone that holds it all together yet also the item that drags it down somewhat. While it is innovative, the game does fall into the realms of repetitive nature the further you progress which is a shame. However, if you can overlook that fact, Doodle Hex has a lot to offer in terms of gameplay and depth to those that are patient enough to get to grips with its intricacies.

Pro: Innovative battle system, plenty of action on offer with over 200 runes to collect, visual presentation is decent
Con: Can be very difficult at times, gameplay falls into repetition very quickly
Final score: 7.2

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