Pushmo World

Genre: Puzzle-Platformer / 3D Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Pushmo World is a family-friendly Puzzle-Platformer with some mild 3D Platformer elements released on the Wii U eShop in 2014. This is the third game in the _____mo series after Pushmo and Crashmo. In this game, players take the role of Mallo, a guy charged with getting to the top of a structure of sliding 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. Where Crashmo added new mechanics to the foundation laid down in Pushmo, Pushmo World returns to the simple mechanics of the first game, along with adding new Miiverse support (that is now sadly no longer available).

As with the handheld titles, the presentation in Pushmo uses simple, colorful 3D visuals that are more detailed than in the Nintendo 3DS games, and while they’re as endearing as ever, they’re still nothing impressive. These visuals are backed by a lighthearted soundtrack with enhanced orchestration, and while this does a good job fitting the game’s tone, again this is nothing especially memorable. Overall, this game does enough to present a friendly exterior, placing a large part of the focus on the puzzles themselves.

As with the original Pushmo, the mechanics of this game’s puzzles are simple enough. Players can slide any block up to three spaces out from the background, or slide them back in. Players can slide from the front as long as they have space behind them to walk, and they can slide from the side as long as they have two adjacent spaces to walk between as they’re pushing or pulling. Players can hop up one space or hop across small gaps, and later you’ll find things like holes with ladders that bring you from one place to another, but otherwise that’s pretty much it.

Despite this game’s extreme simplicity, the core game design is so well-crafted that it makes it easy for anyone to understand the game’s basics while also providing a lot of potential for all sorts of different puzzles, and that is potential that the game takes full advantage of, with 250 levels (plus tutorial levels), including numerous levels designed to look like pixel art of classic Nintendo characters. For the game’s $10 price tag, this is a phenomenal amount of content.

If this was all that was included in the game, it would still be one of the best Puzzle games on the Wii U, but as with the 3DS game, Pushmo World goes above and beyond by offering players a custom Puzzle creator where they can create their own puzzles as well. When it was first released, these puzzles could even be shared with others using Miiverse, but as I mentioned above, this feature is sadly no longer available. However, players can still have the game create QR codes which can be used to send these puzzles to others, or even post online.

Ultimately, without its Miiverse feature, Pushmo World is little more than a port of the original Pushmo to Wii U with different puzzles and a somewhat improved presentation. However, that game was an outstanding Puzzle game, and this remains the case on the Wii U. And even if it’s missing the ability to directly share your crafted puzzles with others on Miiverse, you still have the option to trade QR codes if you find someone else inclined to do so (and indeed, there are some pretty spectacular ones online if you look). As a result, while this game fails to top the Nintendo 3DS original, it can still stand proudly beside it as an outstanding Puzzle game every Wii U owners should have in their collection.

tl;dr – Pushmo World is a family-friendly Puzzle Platformer with light 3D Platformer elements that has players pushing and pulling blocks to climb a structure. This game has a simple concept and is extremely accessible, yet the gameplay hides a lot of potential depth, with plenty of content for the small $10 price tag, including a level builder. And while Wii U owners can no longer trade custom-made Puzzles via Miiverse, there’s still plenty of fun to be had here, and Puzzle fans should absolutely consider this a must-have, and snatch this game up quickly before the eShop closes in March 2023.

Grade: A

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