
Meteos represents a surprising collaboration between two 'amateurs' in the game industry: Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Mashuhiro Sakurai. The former is best known for his work on Rez and Child of Eden but also contributed to Space Channel 5, Lumines and other games that all sound as a primary communication of synesthesia in his video games. The latter is best known for working on the Kirby series as well as Smash Bros (As well as Kid Icarus: Uprising which I know a lot of people here at Portable Platypus are fond of), all of which have very accessible gameplay that may lack depth but more than make up for in content (Super Smash Bros Melee is the quintessential example of this philosophy). I can't really say I'm that big of a fan of either developer but I guess that's a testament to how amazing Meteos really is.

If you've ever played Lumines then you can already form the basic idea of Meteos. For one thing Meteos should be used as a framework for what I like to call "holistic design." Every component of the game complements the gameplay. Each stage represents a different planet. Each planet features a new texture of the meteos blocks but most importantly has different forces of gravity acting on the blocks. Along with this each stage represents a different composition of music: Luna Luna represents a soft jazz score, Fortuna is where you want to go for a more classical medley and the heavy metal medley couldn't be more fitting for the final boss Meteo.
This is the crux of Meteos. Every single element of the game compliments each other, and a removal of any element would be a great detraction. This can be said of all games but with Meteos the game is so meticulously crafted that you can't imagine the game being made any other way (Disney Meteos and Meteos Wars is proof that changing the game in any way causes it to be borderline unplayable). This goes back to Sakurai and Mizuguchi's involvement. Mizuguchi did something similar in Lumines where advancing through the game caused the background to change colour, the music to increase in tempo or even change altogether. It was admittedly pretty and the music is standard Mizuguchi greatness but this detracted from the game at hand. Meteos puts the action front and center and makes the meteos interact with the music, the pace of the game controlling the game, as though the entire game were a conductor's baton dictating the rhythm of the game.

Find Meteos on ebay
Released: 6/27/2005
Publisher: Bandai
Developer: Q Entertainment
0 comments:
Post a Comment