| # - C | D - I | J - N | O - S | T - Z |
| Genre: 2D / Puzzle | CDs: 1 (201 Megs) | Players: 1 Player |
ESRB:Everyone No Descriptors |
| Publisher: Natsume | Retail Barcode: 7 19593 05008 7 | Memory: 1 Block | |
| Developer: Artdink | Sony ID: SLUS-01499 | Accessories: None | |
| Released: May 1st, 2003 | PSRM: 024650 |
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Box Copy What comes around goes around and if things roll your way, you'll tumble into the diabolically tricky rounds of this topsy-turvy, highly addicting puzzler. Incredibly easy to learn and nearly impossible to master, Turnabout will challenge the most skilled puzzle champions. If you still think you know it all, take a spin at custom designing and testing one of up to 50 of your own puzzle creations in Edit Mode! Discussion You know Tetris, and you probably have heard about Intelligent Qube. How would you like to play one of the PlayStations’s best kept secrets? Let me start of by saying I was recommended this game by a friend who claims he only played it drunk. With that kind of enthusiasm, you know I had to try it out. Sure enough, and while clearly sober, I can say without remorse that Turnabout is way more than just fair game. The concept is simple. You have colored spheres and colored boxes. You need to match up the spheres and boxes to each other, and occasionally spheres to spheres as well. Here’s the catch though; you can only rotate the puzzle 90 degrees at a time, with no in between or pause. So whatever movable pieces, both playable and part of the maze, all drop and move at once, and don’t stop until they hit something. This is both as diabolical and as straightforward as it sounds. Puzzles could be solved in 3 moves, or 44 of them. There’s no real 1 right way to do most of the puzzles. Turnabout’s level set is divided in half - 50 puzzles on the front half, and then 50 more once you beat the first part. You are allowed access to 10 puzzles at a time, with the next 10 opening as you solve the majority on your current line. The early puzzles are fairly straight forward, and give you a taste of what logistical nightmares you’ll be facing later on. What makes Turnabout ingenious is that it’s not the amount of play pieces that make a puzzle more difficult, it’s the willingness to see just how many turns they truly wanted you to take. Unlike Intelligent Qube, where the game told you the minimum moves needed, Turnabout only tracks what you’ve done. In this way, your only competition is yourself or whoever you share a save with. Here’s where the game shines; it’s not about the game, it’s about you. Knowing I could solve a puzzle how I wanted to, when I wanted to, and not have to worry about some ranking, or timing, or percentile allows you to really immerse yourself into it. It becomes more a zen-type thing; I realized as I kept playing, the more I quickly figured things out, the more I wanted to play. So what if it took me 98 flips on this one, the next one will be better. If you hit a snag with a tough puzzle, you just bounce to the next. If nothing more than a peculiar self-created reward system, it works, and it works beautifully. It never really had a huge presence in its launch window, but if you’re if you’re looking for a great, great puzzle game that will drive you batty with the simplicity of itself, check out Turnabout. Highly recommended. |
Trivia
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Variants / Misprints There are no known variants yet. |
No variants available. |
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