The Wii U Advantage
So far, we’ve covered the same points you read last year in our initial review of the game. Now it’s time to take a look at what updates the Wii U version is bringing us. First off, you can now view this gorgeous title in full 1080p at 60fps. Furthermore, leaderboards and and remote play have been implemented. Puddle is a perfect title to play on the GamePad if you find yourself needing to hand over control of your TV. I spent a majority of my time staring directly at the GamePad rather than the TV. The game transitions well to the smaller screen and you can expect those vibrant colors to still pop. While all of these are nice additions, the best change comes in the form of the controls. Motion controls are now optional. Yes, you heard right. You won’t be forced to tilt your way through each level. Two new control schemes await Wii U players. You can choose to play using the analog stick or the shoulder buttons (ZL and ZR). I found that using ZL and ZR was by far the best way to play Puddle in terms of overall comfort and precision. This is easily the greatest edge the Wii U version has over the rest.
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Difficulty Spikes
Neko tried to alleviate the frustration caused by Puddle’s difficulty this time around by tampering with the trial and error vibe of some levels. However, chances are you will still find yourself replaying certain levels a few times over. There are no checkpoints in Puddle, so once you fail it’s back to the beginning. Although the levels are fairly short, certain environments will have you begging for a checkpoint as you come close to success only to fail on the home stretch. One of the main contributors to the rising levels of rage is the camera. No control over the camera is given and it’s very likely that your liquid stream will break up into smaller, detached segments. This will result in those broken up blobs to fall beyond the view of the player, leaving them wondering if they should attempt to re-obtain the bits or just move on. In higher difficulty levels, this becomes even more frustrating as every drop counts. Sure, you can use one of your “Whines” to skip the level, but where’s the fun in that? No one wants to purchase a game just to start skipping over pieces of the content they paid for.
Verdict
Puddle is a visually impressive and addicting downloadable title, further enhanced on the Wii U. The sharper visuals, leaderboards, remote play and most importantly, the new control schemes make for a very enticing repackaging of a year old downloadable game. While frustration is sure to arise at some point still, the overall experience manages to improve upon the original and gives early Wii U adopters a solid title to download while they wait to hear what’s hitting the system next. If you passed on Puddle before, then now is the time to try out the definitive version of the game.
[Editor’s Note: Puddle was reviewed on the Wii U platform. The game voucher was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
