Welcome to our review of ChuChu Rocket! Universe, a game out now on Apple Arcade and it brings back that good old Dreamcast feeling.
ChuChu Rocket! is back. Enjoy the revived SEGA hit game as it scurries its way into a series of mind-blowing 3D puzzles. With a quirky art style, cat and mouse pathfinding puzzles, and a universe full of strange and wonderful planets to explore and solve, ChuChu Rocket! Universe is a whole new take on the ground-breaking Dreamcast classic.
Guide the ChuChus in over 100 mind-bending puzzles to solve as you travel through many unique and delightful galaxies. Explore a universe full of surprises while rescuing your mouse-napped friends from the claws of King Kapu and his wacky band of space cats, the KapuKapu!
You know what you need to do; it’s just hard to achieve when the gameplay is constantly shifting, and everyone is trying to get one step ahead! As you make your way across the universe, different play styles are necessary in each type of level – chill and take your time – solving brain scratching puzzles, or race against the clock in timed challenge levels, and confront an assortment of King Kapu’s toughest henchmen in boss battles!
Jump into four-player quick matches or invite your friends to join you in frenzied multiplayer battles. Easy to pick up and play, but tough to put down frantic action. Compete in free-for-all or team battles in both old favorite classic maps, and a whole host of new arenas to challenge your friends in. Master every Constellation and collect and fill your home planet with an adorable assortment of ChuChus. Each ChuChu you discover in single-player unlocks a new avatar for multiplayer!
ChuChu Rocket Universe was one of my favorite Dreamcast games back in the days and I admit I never finished the game due to the big library the era had, not specifically Sega, but all of em. In my humble opinion, it is very much fine to enjoy and like games without actually finishing them. It is your choice as it should always be. What I can say however is that I enjoyed the pace of this game. You can just map out your entire working flow and then make them go off to the rocket. ChuChu Rocket Universe does a great job in this aspect and while most levels are clearly fun, some are also plagued by one thing, the screen size. (Controls itself are easy to use and pretty self-explanatory.)
I have found this to be an issue with Oceanhorn 2 as well and while not so present in ChuChu Rocket Universe, it is present nonetheless. Several levels have these multiple layers of 3D puzzling and that is where the iPhone screen might be too small. I am sure an iPad will be 100 times better already, let alone a TV or Mac screen. I found it hard to really maneuver around the levels and did send some of my critters into certain death. Luckily there is a rewind button that does not reset the layout of your blocks. If you just missed it by placing your block on the square next to it, it takes a few seconds only to correct and advance.
There was clearly a lot of time well spent in the entire aspect of making it about as user-friendly as possible, in the limits of the screen size that is. Apple Arcade is turning out to be a lot more fun than I originally anticipated and while I also tried the game with the good old trick on my MacBook Air screen, see my Oceanhorn 2 review for how to do this, I did not find the use of my Nimbus controller to be an added bonus.
ChuChu Rocket Universe is very easy to use in both handheld and TV mode, for a lack of a better description? Now I have to say something else, in regards to some of the hate that was given to this game. As this is an Apple Arcade game, I read some comments online about how you need an xxx euros costing smartphone in order to be able to play these games. Yes, for another week, this is true. After this week, you will be able to play it on your iPad or Apple TV as well. In October, MacOS Catalina will be released and at that time, even your mac laptop or desktop will be able to play it.
I can hear some haters give me flack already about this, but seriously, an apple TV costs way less than any of the consoles you probably also got in your household. It has multiple other uses for the household like Netflix, … so that is a definite alternative if you do not want to shell out hundreds of euros. Apple Arcade is something novel and I do currently think it is worth the time and effort to look into it.
In conclusion, ChuChu Rocket! Universe is fun to play and very nostalgic. Imagine taking out your iPhone and being able to play this game within 10 seconds (on an 8)! I do feel some levels might need some further tweaking but that is just nitpicking.
