DS Review: Sudoku Ball Detective

As you may have noticed (well alright, it would be impossible not to notice this), the number game of Sudoku seems to have taken the world by storm especially as of the past few years. It's been around for ages under different names, but the fact remains the same: people seem to be enamoured by this strange, yet addictive game. What exactly is the appeal, you may ask?

Well, for a start, as of late the game has been touted as helping to keep the aging mind sharp, and to make the growing mind more acute. There's plenty of people who, even upon the game being explained to them, still won't understand it. As a result, there seems to be an air of eliteness among those who do understand it, and cling to it that much harder as a status symbol. (Not entirely unlike Starbucks.)

This particular title tries to put a new spin on the game...with varying degrees of success. The storyline is more or less your typical murder mystery, which you must help to solve - albeit not playing as any given one of the characters in particular. You're playing from a third person type of perspective, which gives the game somewhat of a strange tone to it, but not entirely bad. Just different. The graphics are pretty meh... The map is downright embarssing in its quality (or lack thereof). If it were better quality, I'd probably be reminded of Animal Crossing, but...it's not, so it doesn't. It's more like you're sitting there and watching a movie unfold and as you complete more an more puzzles, you unlock more and more of the storyline. It's a slow and tedious process, but it gets the job done.

As for the puzzles themselves, they basically are just a typical Sudoku game, but with a slight twist: Instead of being presented with a typical 9-grid Sudoku board, you're presented with a whopping six 9-grid boards that form a globe (well, ball) that you have to entirely fill in to complete each level. Some levels are relaxed, and you can fill them in at your leisure, while others are timed so tightly that if you don't complete it by the time the hourglass at the side of the screen runs dry, you'll be losing some of the numbers you inputted on the grid and will have to re-enter them. And then there's still other levels where you have to race against the clock to use your grids to crack combination codes, chase after criminals, etc. It gets pretty intense for something that used to be thought of nothing more than as an old people's game.

If you're not much of a Sudoku fan, STEER CLEAR of this game! There's a total of about 240 puzzles before you're done. If you're into that sort of thing, then step right up! You'll love this. Really.

Rating this a 6 out of 10 Sudoku balls.