Kickle Cubicle review - Nintendo Entertainment System

Would you believe it? The five Fantasy Kingdoms have been taken over by evil marauders. Not only that, but the five Fantasy Palaces and their occupants have been hidden away. But worst of all is that all of the Kingdoms have been turned into ice. Luckily for everyone concerned, you, Kickle Cubicle, were passing the scene with your magic powers in tow. Now you've been recruited by the plants, flowers, fruit and other pretty flora and fauna of the Fantasy Kingdoms to save their Princesses and restore the lands to their former greenery.

Kickle Cubicle is a single-screen puzzle game which takes place on areas of blocks suspended in space. The object is simply to complete each screen by picking up three magic pouches. They're usually impossible to reach at first, situated on single blocks unconnected to the main playing area, so what you have to do is create a path to reach them. To do this you blast a nearby baddie with your freeze ray and turn him into an ice block. Pushing the block off the edge of the landscape turns it into a bridge section, which you keep building upon until you can reach the pouches.

It might sound simple, but as you progress there are more and more hazards, far more baddies and the pouches get increasingly difficult to reach. But hey, when you've got a name like Kickle Cubicle, life is never going to be easy.

What the Mean Machines staff thought

At first sight, Kickle Cubicle appears to be a moronic excuse for a game. And for the first few levels that's what it is. The game is simplistic and far too easy. All this changes, however, once the first world is completed. From here, things get a lot tougher, with Kickle coming up against some fiendish traps, some of which take a lot of thinking to get out of. Although even then, the game could never be classed as difficult. Kickle Cubicle is never really a test of reflexes, but as a puzzle game it works quite well. The lastability is questionable however, due to the infinite continues and the simplicity of the gameplay. If puzzle games are your thing, give Kickle Cubicle a go. If not, then I'd advise you to try it out before parting with any money.

Kickle Cubicle is an almost brilliant game which is sadly let down by a few annoying flaws. It's fun to play and is very addictive at first, with the simplistic gameplay providing very entertaining, medium-paced puzzle-solving antics. However, the challenge never really appears, and with very little practice you're able to get miles into the game - and the infinite continues let even the biggest videogame idiot complete the game with ease! Puzzle fans will certainly enjoy Kickle Cubicle, but unfortunately the enjoyment just doesn't last long enough.

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