Hexa Maze

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Hexa Maze, released in 2019 on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, is a Puzzle game similar to traditional tangram-style puzzles where you fit various geometric shaped pieces into a larger shape, but in this game the different shapes are constructed from hexagons, with 240 puzzles in total. And just to be clear, there are no mazes in this game, so I’m not sure where the title comes from.

The presentation of this game seems… confused. It uses a “crystals in space look” using 2D visuals that’s nice-looking, but not conducive to the gameplay as the shapes are darkly-colored in a way that blends in with the background and keeps the shapes from standing out. Making things seem even more amateurish, this game’s absolutely scream “mobile game”, though I cannot find an actual mobile version of this game.

What’s more, these visuals absolutely clash with the game’s lighthearted music consisting of a ukelele and bells. As if this wasn’t enough, the fanfare that plays when you complete each level plays over the music. And some of the sound effect choices are bizarre too, like an odd crunchy noise that plays whenever you pick up a piece.

When it comes to the gameplay, well… this is a tangrams-style game, so there’s not much to say here. You fit pieces into the larger shape, rinse, repeat. You cannot rotate the pieces, and while you can click a button for a “hint”, you’re limited in how many of these you can use, and must earn them by completing levels.

There’s one major flaw I can point to in this fairly cookie-cutter gameplay, and that is that the cursor speed when using a gamepad is terribly slow. However, the game makes up for this somewhat by offering decent touchscreen controls when played in portable mode.

Overall, Hexa Maze is a game that doesn’t do very much to transform an old and tired gameplay formula, and some of the presentation choices it makes are baffling and at odds with both the gameplay and each other. I suppose fans of tangram-style games may find this worth the low $5 asking price, but even for that price there are plenty of better Puzzle games on the Nintendo Switch – I suggest you play one of those instead.

tl;dr – Hexa Maze is a Puzzle game that’s similar to tangram-style puzzles, having players fit shapes made of hexagrams into a larger shape. This game does little to reinvent the gameplay, and the presentation just does not work well here. This isn’t a terrible Puzzle game, but even for the low $5 price of this game I think you have better options on Nintendo Switch.

Grade: C-

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