Crush 3D Review

Crush3D is a puzzle-platforming game developed by Zoe Mode and published by Sega. It is a remake of the original game “Crush” for the Playstation Portable in 2007 and is exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS platform. Crush3D consists mainly of a story mode in addition to optional streetpass functionality. The story mode is composed of over 50 platforming-based puzzles involving collecting ‘marbles’ and reaching the end of each level whilst making use of both two and three dimensional viewpoints. The story behind Crush3D is fairly simple; you play the role of ‘Danny’, a close friend of another character known only as the ‘doc’; ‘doc’ has created another ‘revolutionary’ contraption called .C.R.U.S.H. and plans to use Danny as a guinea pig to test the limits of dimensions with fairly predictable results. Danny must then escape his own subconscious by collecting and utilising marbles scattered within it. Between and during the various levels, the story is delivered with a defined comic-like art style with speech bubbles and text. There is no voice acting but the simple drawings and matching text boxes make up for this shortcoming. Despite the story proper being very short on substance or complexity, the delivery of the story is direct and straightforward, the characters have little definition past name terms and the occasional joke to show relationships but given the game’s genre, this isn’t too much of a flaw overall.
Given that Crush3D is a puzzle platformer, the gameplay tends to show very little deviation throughout. The key mechanic of the experience being that the player can “crush” the world to change their movement from 3D to 2D based on the camera position. I.e. if the camera is a top-down view, the world crushes to 2D platforms of the top faces of the world’s structures. This technique often means that structures that are much further away than Danny can jump can be reached effortlessly if the objects are close in one directional axis. Despite this seemingly easy method of getting around, it comes with a great deal of limitations and rules. For example, crushing into a platform will cause Danny to be crushed and the crush motion to be negated, also, there are several types of wall that have different effects based on the dimension/axis you’re currently in such as a “brick wall” that cannot be traversed in 2D, even if the platform is right next to you. In addition to these limitations, the game is quick to ramp up the difficulty but not through puzzle complexity. The game instead chooses to increase its difficulty by introducing a wide variety of additional tools and obstacles including large balls and cans to push, switches to press and occasional enemies to avoid.

Despite this increase in difficulty and complexity, the game becomes easy to master quickly. The more puzzles that are worked out via the crush mechanic, the easier it becomes to use and figure out. In that sense, the game has a difficulty curve that levels out after the initial mechanics are introduced. Even if you get stuck with the mechanics or a route through a level, the game offers a hint system that allows the player to get the feel of a level at the expense of a “perfect clear” akin to most other puzzle games. Overall the game is challenging but easy to pick up mechanically. The game offers help where it can and is rarely frustrating, allowing players of most skill levels to adapt and feel like they’re succeeding. As a puzzle game, this really helps to drive the motivation forward despite the player being stuck or disadvantaged. Despite the un-subtle hint system, the game is quick to reward those that use only their brains and logic over those that use the hint system with the game additionally rewarding the plaer in terms of unlocks and overall recognition. Outside of completing the levels normally the game has some additional challenges including hidden books that require an alternate route to get and a trophy that only appears if the level is crushed at a certain angle, challenging the player further to take full advantage of the crush mechanics, a great touch for experienced puzzlers or players running through the game a second time.

Even with the fact that C.R.U.S.H takes Danny to the “inner subconscious” of his mind, it would seem that the majority of his mind contains the same platforms in varying patterns. This aesthetic has its charm though with floating traffic cones and cityscapes as an example bringing the thoughts of Danny to life quite well. The platforms rarely change however and it quickly becomes apparent that Danny only has few themes to subconsciously think about including the light grey urban cityscape or a sandy beach with pink palm trees. It’s disappointing that with such a blank canvas to work with given the story’s interpretation of the surroundings, the game only goes for the immediately recognisable places with no real experimentation. Despite the lack of variation of aesthetics present in Crush3D, the 3DS technology manages to display the game with an acceptable level of graphical quality with the 3D mode only helping to intensify this. The animations are pretty weak in areas but the game runs very smoothly even in 3D mode, making the game quite graphically pleasing considering the hardware capabilities. In terms of sound the game has a soundtrack that is an interesting middle ground between rather relaxing and unexpectedly tense complete with high pitched squeals, occasional screams and other ambient sound effects that match each level (E.g. police sirens in the cityscape areas). The sound effects of crushed match the game quite well but aren’t particularly exciting, the music makes up for this regard but given the ‘subconscious’ story theme some variation wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Whilst the main ‘story’ mode is rather long, sufficiently challenging and will occupy you for many hours, the game offers very little in variation past this. The only game mode of note outside of story mode is the streetpass functionality of the game, this involves exchanging found gifts and coins to other players via streetpass provided that they too own crush3D. The game has some replayability in terms of collecting the hidden books and trophies in the levels mentioned above, however this is negated if you are an experienced puzzle player since the unlockables can be obtained as the game is run through. To that end, completionists are only really required to run the game through once in order to see the entirety of it. The unlockables of the game are pretty disappointing too being composed entirely of additional artwork and a very wide variety of different colours for Danny’s dressing gown. Put simply, the idea of gaining another colour of gown after collecting your 40th colour makes the whole pursuit of it seem stale and unrewarding, allowing only ‘hardcore’ completionists to see any real benefit to it.

Presentation

The game’s menus, comic-book delivered story and overall setting suit the game rather well and suit the puzzle genre well to a degree. The game is severely let down via the lack of creativity given the story’s context however. The environments end up being very “familiar” and lacking in variation. The soundtrack is very good and suits the moods well but in terms of what this music is matched too, there’s a lot of potential that was sadly missed.

Graphics

The cut-scenes are very well animated and drawn as is the game world itself. The backgrounds are interesting to look at and have a lot of interesting minute touches. The animations could be better but the game runes at an acceptable frame rate. The 3D functionality only helps to improve these aspects making Crush3D one of the games that the 3D should be mandatory for.

Sound

The soundtrack of Crush3D is surprisingly fitting for its genre and setting and is in some cases the most enjoyable part of the experience. The music changes from relaxing to tense instantly in many cases. Hearing relaxing music whilst working out a tricky problem immediately followed by a blood-curdling scream is a fascinating trait. The sound effects in the game have little variation but do their job well; they’re neither fantastic nor disappointing.

Gameplay

As a puzzle game, the gameplay of Crush3D is very good. The difficulty curve is steep at first but once most of the mechanics have been introduced the game can be played with a fairly even level of difficulty. The inclusion of a hint function is good for the inexperienced puzzle player but there’s no deviation on difficulty passed that. The only real gripe about this aspect is that the game tends to increase the difficulty via introducing various mechanics and items to use as opposed to creating a truly challenging puzzle to navigate.

Replay Value

Crush3D does try to offer incentives for players to continue playing but there are a few drawbacks. Firstly, the unlockables of the game don’t provide a sense of reward due to their similarity. Secondly, the streetpass functionality doesn’t offer much in terms of gameplay function and looks to serve the needs of promoting the hardware choice rather than using it for constructive purposes. Finally, all the unlockables can be obtained in a single play through if the player is skilled, leaving little room to manoeuvre for experienced puzzle game players.

Overall

Crush3D is an interesting game both for the puzzle genre and for the 3DS’ features. It uses the 3D well and has a nice charm to it. The gameplay is fairly refreshing and the difficulty curve isn’t too steep but there was a lot of potential that was missed. Graphically, the canvas that the artists had to work with was much grander than was utilised but what is there isn’t a great upset. The soundtrack is impressive and suit the game well but the replayability and incentives to keep playing to appreciate the game appears to not hit the mark as well as it could have. Overall, it’s recommended that those with the PSP original keep that since not a lot has changed. However, for those that are looking for a challenging puzzler that utilises dimensions, give this one a try, it may just be the thing you’re looking for.

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