Crashmo

Genre: Puzzle-Platformer / 3D Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Crashmo is a family-friendly Puzzle-Platformer with some mild 3D Platformer elements released on Nintendo 3DS eShop in 2015. This is the second game in the _____mo series, coming after 2011’s Pushmo, and its gameplay and premise is mostly pretty similar. In this game, players once again take the role of Mallo, a guy charged with getting to the top of a structure of blocks to rescue a trapped child. To do so, players must push and pull the blocks in the structure to create a path they can use to get to the top. However, in Crashmo, these blocks are now affected by gravity, which adds a new element to the way this game plays.

When it comes to the presentation, as in the first game, Crashmo uses simple, colorful 3D visuals that are appealing but nothing impressive, backed by a lighthearted soundtrack that does a good job of fitting the game’s tone. Overall, this game does enough to present a friendly exterior, placing a large part of the focus on the puzzles themselves.

For the gameplay, the added physics of this game manage to do just enough to set this game apart from Pushmo without needlessly complicating things. This is still an extremely accessible, highly enjoyable Puzzle game with some delightfully clever puzzle design across its 80 levels (plus 20 “lesson” levels). This isn’t bad, but it’s disappointing when the previous game had 50% more puzzles and cost $2 less.

In addition to these levels,, Stretchmo offers players a custom Puzzle creator where they can create their own puzzles as well. And while this game doesn’t include any direct mechanism to send these puzzles to other Nintendo 3DS systems, players can have the game create QR codes which can be used to send these puzzles to others, or even post online.

In the end, Crashmo is very nearly as good as Pushmo was, an excellent Puzzle-Platformer with superb puzzle design. However, it’s surprisingly light on content when compared to its predecessor. Even so, Puzzle game fans on Nintendo 3DS should absolutely pick this game up before the Nintendo 3DS eShop closes permanently in March 2023.

tl;dr – Crashmo is a family-friendly Puzzle Platformer with light 3D Platformer elements that has players pushing and pulling blocks to climb a structure, with this game adding gravity into the mix to make for a somewhat different experience than we had in Pushmo. It makes for an excellent Puzzle-Platformer with some really great gameplay, but the content is slimmer compared to the previous game, despite an inflated price tag. Despite this, it’s still an excellent game for Puzzle fans, and one they’ll want to snatch up quickly before the eShop closes in March 2023.

Grade: A-

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