10000000 Review

Puzzle-RPG hybrids have been something of a minor trend in gaming lately. It makes a kind of sense: replace battle elements with puzzle matching, and there’s a winning formula. It happened with Puzzle Quest and Dungeon Raid, and so goes 10000000.

The game is so named as the goal is to ultimately score 10,000,000 points to win freedom for the protagonist. That will take a long, long time. Pieces are moved by the row or column, and a match must be made or else the pieces all snap back to their original position. Each match has a different effect. Swords do physical damage, staves do magical damage. The pink squares with backpacks summon up random items. The keys unlock chests and doors. The shields absorb damage, which is represented by how far back off the screen the hero gets – if he gets scrolled off the screen, it’s game over.

There’s something about the game that is so addictive. It may be the challenge that comes from trying to complete more objectives, to get more rewards and upgrade stats to run further. It may be thanks to the short sessions that cause the game to always feel just short enough, that the next one could be better. Not only is the hero always running forward, but there’s always that desire to keep retrying, to improve one’s score and get new upgrades. It always leaves the player wanting more, in a good way. The soundtrack is full of some absolutely fantastic chiptunes.

The challenge often comes from trying to make matches. Because an entire row snaps back in place, it’s difficult to just make a quick random match, and it is often necessary to make wasteful moves to advance forward. I would like to see matches for non-immediate actions, such as matching keys during a battle, queue up for later uses. In fact, even saved items can often go to waste if activated just a split-second before the chest or enemy is in range. It’s way too frustrating. Also, while I appreciate that the game is universal, row-sliding works a lot better on the iPhone/iPod touch screen than it does on the iPad just because it's easier to scroll with one's thumbs.

10000000 is at times extremely frustrating, but I still find myself compelled to play it again and again. I mean, that name is just hard to type out because I’m never sure how many zeroes there are in it, but it’s still a great puzzle-RPG hybrid.