AMAZING TATER

There is a reader of this very column that will enjoy Amazing Tater. We are not that person, and it would take a very long time for us to become that person. Amazing tater is not a falling tile puzzler, or a swapping tile puzzler. It is a block pushing puzzler with a top down perspective, like Chips Challenge or Sokoban. But there isn’t the depth of Chip’s, or Void Stranger, or most other block pushers. Your only goal in the main game mode is to get to the goal flag. There are rotating pieces and blocks you can push, and that’s all.

Alongside a tutorial there are three main game modes. First is Puzzle Mode, where you go through the stages with no time limit. Then there’s Practice Mode, where you play ten random stages as quickly as you can trying to get the best time, and finally Action Mode where you race computers I think? We didn’t get very far in Action Mode because we got stuck on the very first puzzle. This game is mind bending in a way we struggle to describe. It’s the sort of game where if you stare at it long enough you can figure out the combination of moves you need to perform to progress. There is no time limit. It’s sort of like a Rubiks Cube. But maybe it’s our ADHD, or our poor memory or just a lack of development in the Rubikcubal lobe because we can stare and stare at these puzzles all day and come up dry.

Tetris or Puyo is more reaction focused, more reacting to what pieces you get with only one or two pieces in front of you to strategize. That’s where the addicting nature of Tetris and Puyo come in, it’s the expectation that your number will come up, that your line or double red is just one pull away, and that your best laid plans will be executed before they get buried by all the garbage you get sent your way. This game gives everything you need to solve it on one screen, like Brain Drain, but there’s more moving parts and more to figure out. We got to level 9 on the easiest world before becoming totally stuck.

How about presentation? It’s a basic looking game but the sprite art is cute, and the music is amazing. It may actually be some of the best Game Boy music we’ve heard period, give it a listen! The manual also tells a bit of a story, with Spud the Amazing Tater wanting to become one of King Watermelon’s Knights of the Garden (hence the idea of a race and competition.) It lives up to the Atlus quality standard (yes, Persona and Shin Megami Tensei Atlus) and gives the sort of game someone with a more logical brain might enjoy. Our wife would enjoy this game. We don’t. Maybe we need categories for the rankings, so quality games we don’t enjoy don’t get buried.