Review: Crush 3D

Crush 3D, Sega’s new puzzle game for the Nintendo 3DS, is a polarizing game. Its nice to see the puzzle game genre doing so well with developers trying out new ideas and the game shines in this respect, but with that being said it is still at its heart a niche puzzle game and not for everyone.

The game’s has an interesting premise whee by the protagonist delved into their subconscious to unlock memories and repressed thoughts. This concept could have gone a lot further and its a shame they didn’t really capitalize on this. Sure puzzle games aren’t generally known for their story but the potential is there in the genre with games like Myst, and the premise here could definitely grow to match. Unfortunately the story is relegated to background noise as you just focus on solving the puzzles immediately in front of you and collecting pretty marbles along the way.

The game-play mechanics are solid, playing with two and three dimensional views and he effects of perception. There is a decent amount of variety here and the core game-play is solid enough to force you to engage a little brain power. It can get confusing towards the end but nobody is going to accuse the game of being too easy, right?

Overall its a solid puzzle game. I would have loved if they could have expanded on the story and made it more dramatic but if you just want to fiddle through some puzzles, it can be a fun diversion. The game requires patience and ingenuity though. It certainly wouldn’t be described as ‘action packed’ by anybody. Crush 3D, like many other puzzle games is polarizing. You’ll enjoy figuring it out, or get bored quickly.