Sudoku Fever – GBA – Review

The puzzle
book game of Sudoku is currently enjoying status as the hot new puzzle of the
day. While it has been around for a few decades, it has just now caught on in
popularity internationally. Sudoku puzzle magazines can be found everywhere,
in book stores, dollar stores, supermarkets and online venders such as Amazon.
Sudoku is a math and logic game where numbers from one to nine are placed
inside a three-by-three grid, which in turn is inside a bigger grid of
nine-by-nine squares. The rules are simple: the numbers are only placed once
within each three-by-three grid, and the same number cannot repeat itself in
the same horizontal or vertical row. Variants are mainly to do with the size
of the grid and the difficulty levels.

Hoping to
cash in on this puzzle fad, several versions of Sudoku have been recently
published on the console and PC market. Sudoku Fever is a GameBoy Advance
version, and offers several different types of Sudoku puzzles. There is the
classic version, the Mini and the Junior, plus a few games that offer smaller
grids. The Junior version is for younger players, essentially. Preferences
include the ability to have the game show possible numbers for certain spaces,
giving the correct number for a space, or solving the entire puzzle.  There is
also an editor that allows players to insert the numbers from other puzzles to
solve them on the GBA.

This version
of Sudoku is pretty straightforward; the music is so-so and can’t be changed,
and while there are backgrounds to choose, they are nothing really special to
see. However, puzzle fans don’t need these things, they just want to solve
lots of puzzles.

We’ve had a
lot of fun with Sudoku Fever. Our family has always enjoyed puzzle magazines
like Dell and Penny Press, but we’ve just recently become acquainted with
Sudoku. Actually, this game can in pretty handy this week, as one of our
daughters broke her foot, which has required us to do some extensive traveling
and sitting in Doctor’s offices. My husband hates playing on handheld
consoles, but has been playing with this game and thoroughly enjoying it.

As I haven’t
played the other console versions of Sudoku that are currently or soon to be
available, I can’t really compare them. I can say that we’ve been having a
great time with Sudoku Fever, and it is one of the small group of handheld
games that we will definitely keep in our library of games. A great game for
any puzzle fan, and one that can be played over again and again without having
to buy a new magazine.

Gameplay: 8.0
Solving Sudoku
puzzles is fun on this GBA version of this puzzle phenomenon.
While simple, the design is elegant and gives players lots of options for easy
or difficult puzzles.

Graphics: 6.0
The graphics are
average and somewhat uninteresting.

Sound: 5.0
There is music
and sound effects, but they are minimal and don’t offer music choices.

Difficulty: Medium
There are several
difficulty levels, ranging from easy to horrendous.

Concept: 6.0
It’s classic
Sudoku, nothing radically new.

Overall: 7.5
This is a fun
game to play if you enjoy solving logic puzzles. A good version that offers
choices in terms of gameplay and difficulty, but doesn’t have many options in
terms of graphics or sound. However, puzzle fans don’t really require a lot of
special effects. A good choice for people who enjoy puzzles, and for families.