Fantastic puzzle action, but it's over much too soon.

User Rating: 7.9 | Adventures of Lolo NES
Adventures of Lolo is a puzzle game with a bit of action, and a refreshing change of pace from the typical games falling into the puzzle category which usually consist of arranging falling blocks or matching tiles, or both. The premise has you controlling Lolo, who must make it to the tenth and final floor of a castle in order to defeat the Great Devil and rescue the captured Princess Lala. Each floor consists of five rooms, with each room being a separate puzzle that must be solved. The rooms are tile based with every object occupying exactly one tile on the grid.

The main goal of each puzzle is to collect all of the hearts in a room, which opens up a treasure chest containing a gem. Lolo must then grab this gem to open the exit door (or stairs if it's the last room on a floor,) and then make his way to the exit. All of this is easier said than done, however, as several different types of enemies block Lolo's progress in various ways. Combat is rarely an option, as Lolo's sole attack is a magic shot with very limited ammo granted to him by certain unmarked hearts. These shots turn certain enemies into eggs, which can then be pushed around the map to block the line of fire from shot-firing enemies, or can be pushed into water to form a temporary bridge. The eggs will hatch after a few seconds, freeing the enemy, and they sink after a time in the water, so speed is key. An egg can also be shot again to temporarily remove an enemy from the play field. Most rooms have blocks on the play field that can be pushed like eggs to protect Lolo from shots, but also serve as obstacles, as they cannot be pulled and two or more blocks in a row cannot be shoved in line with each other. Thus many levels revolve around carefully manipulating the blocks in a certain order lest Lolo or a block becomes trapped, much like Sokoban. This is complicated by another feature on some puzzles, the arrow tile. Lolo cannot enter and stand on an arrow tile from the side the arrow is pointing at; for instance, he cannot go up to stand on a down arrow tile. Blocks and eggs can be pushed onto arrow tiles from any direction. Levels featuring arrows require very deliberate thinking, since one bad move will trap Lolo and force you to restart the level.

Lolo has a few more tricks up his sleeve in the form of items (also used with the shot button) that help him manipulate the landscape. These only appear on some levels, and Lolo starts out with one or more of them as indicated on the side of the screen. In order to use them Lolo must collect a certain but unindicated number of hearts; when one more heart needs to be collected, all of the remaining hearts will glow to indicate that they will grant Lolo the next item. One of the items is a bridge that Lolo can permanently place atop 1 tile of water to allow him to cross rivers or cut corners. The next is a hammer that can be used to remove one boulder in the room by facing it and pressing the shot button. The final one is an arrow direction changer that lets Lolo change the direction of an arrow tile so that he may walk over it from a different side.

The fifty puzzles in the game are brilliant and require a good variety of strategy to solve. Many require you to think about the order in which you collect the hearts, as certain enemies remain dormant until the last one is collected, and if you aren't careful it will be difficult or impossible to collect the gem depending on where you are after grabbing that final heart. Collecting the gem removes all of the enemies, but if you weren't careful you might have left boxes laying around in such a way that you can't reach the exit. Some rooms require a bit of trial and error guessing, as on first play there is no way to know how many hearts must be collected to activate an item, or which hearts (if any) give ammo for Lolo's magic shot. This blind guesswork is kept to a minimum, however, and doesn't become frustrating; it's most likely that if you've thought about and seemingly found a way through the puzzle, the order you collect the hearts in will give you what you need. Boxes and arrow tiles provide for some truly frightening initial impressions on a few of the levels, and when you complete one of these levels you can't help but admire whoever designed it. Other puzzles are very clear almost from the beginning, but the execution of the solution relies on timing and speed to avoid enemies, which is a nice bit of excitement, though it can be a bit frustrating when every little step counts and messing up forces a repeat of the beginning, no-brainer part of the puzzle. Fortunately, penalties for messing up are light. Lolo gets five lives, after which a game over screen appears with a four letter password, and continuing from where you died is just a couple presses of the START/ + button away. You can also reset a puzzle if you get trapped by pressing SELECT/ - at the cost of one of your lives. As mentioned, the password system is very easy to use in this game, but the Virtual Console suspend game feature makes continuing the game at a later time even easier.

Graphics and sound are both good but very spartan. There is one catchy song that plays through all 50 puzzles, and while it almost never wears some different tunes would have been nice. The same can be said for the graphics. They're very nice and clean, and Lolo's walking animation is charming, but the same tile set and enemies are used across the whole game. This does keep you focused on the puzzles since everything is instantly recognizable in a new room, but by the end it is a bit boring. The intro and ending are also a bit blah; after completing the last puzzle a short animation of Lolo defeating the Great Devil and saving the land plays, and then it's the end, there aren't even credits. This is a game from the late 80s, but a bit more could have been done. Still, the puzzles are clearly the star.

Unfortunately, the 50 puzzles won't seem to last very long. There are a few real headscratchers, and the quality never falls much, but the game can be beaten in just 4-6 hours, and replay value is minimal. There were two more games in the series on the NES, and both Lolo 2 and Lolo 3 build upon the first game with better presentation and more puzzles. 500 Wii points is not a bad price for this game, but it's difficult to say whether it is worth it. If you adored Chu Chu Rocket's single player modes, want another game like Solomon's Key or Chew Man Fu, or enjoy Sokoban-style puzzle games, grab it, but be aware that there are similar games of better value on the way. All told, Adventures of Lolo is a fine, immensely enjoyable, and addictive puzzle game that will leave you wanting more.