GG Series Collection Plus (DS),Part 1

GG Series Collection Plus is a collection of 30 games, some of which are available individually on the DSiWare store, though a lot of them are exclusive to this cartridge. None of the games use the DS's touchscreen, and the collection can be compared to finding a huge box full of loose cartridges for a 16-bit console. Since the cartridge contains 30 games that are all fairly unique to each other, I'll be splitting the coverage of them into four posts, one for each of the collection's categories. First up is the Puzzle section, containing four games.

Conveyor Konpou
This game is set in a pastel-coloured penguin factory, and the player has to pack penguins into boxes that match their colours. This is done by moving a 2x1 cursor around, and switching the positions of boxes and penguins, in a manner similar to Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon. There's a combo mechanic, but rather than focussing entirely on pre-setting up multipart chains, it places its weight on just quickly packing massive amounts of penguins in quick succession, so it's better to place your efforts into gathering large groups of the same coloured penguins into one place before bringing a box in to clear them all in one go. It's a pretty good game, and it seems to build up points for unlocking games quicker than most of the others, which is helpful, as unlocking more games is a massive chore.

Energy Chain
Set in some kind of cube-based electrical circuit map, the aim of Energy Chain is to connect up the four pre-placed, immovable generators with lines of coloured blocks. Obviously, power can only travel along lines of uniform hue, and once a connection is made, the coloured blocks disappear, making room for more to be placed. It's not an exciting game, but it does have a certain kind of charm that only boring games have. It's not the worst game in this section, not at all.

Vertex
Very similar to the Konami classic Quarth, Vertex presents the player with simple shapes like squares and regular pentagons with missing vertices, which must be filled in as quickly as possible. Y shoots one vertex, X shoots two and A three. Over-verting results in the shapes quickly jutting downwards and in time-honoured tradition, once a shape crosses the line at the bottom, the player loses. Though the game generously gives three lives instead of an instant game over.

Black x Block
A game in which the player controls a little stick-person, who has to reach the exit on each stage by picking up, turning and placing large black blocks. I'll be totally honest, I'm terrible at this game and I don't enjoy playing it and the minimalist presentation leaves me a bit cold.

Vector
This one reminds me of Gunpey both mechanically and aesthetically, and like Gunpey, it doesn't really excite me. Blocks fall from above with little arrows on them, and the aim is to turn them so that the arrows point into lines, with 90 degree turns acceptable, and when a line is at least four blocks long, all the blocks will disappear. It's not a bad game, and it's pretty easy to set up mildly satisfying chains, but mild satisfaction is all it really offers. I don't dislike it as much as Black x Block, but it's not one I return to often.

Yuusha Puzzle
Yuusha Puzzle is an RPG-themed colour-matching game (except that instead of colours, you're matching RPG equipment). You're presented with a stream of typical fantasy RPG monsters, who attack by dropping garbage blocks into your well, as well as by doing Tetris Battle Gaiden-style status effects like blocking your view, restricting movement and so on. To fight back, you match items. Weapons like wands, swords and spears just straight up damage the monsters, with more damage dealt by matching up more at once. Sheilds and helmets and other bits of armour erase any garbage blocks touching them when they go, dealing a bit of counterattack damage to the enemy for each garbage block deleted this way. It takes way too long to get difficult, and it repeats monsters far too much, but for some reason, when I play it, I'll often end up becoming enthralled with it for long periods of time.