Lolo is a puzzle game where you find your way through levels, mostly by pushing blocks and manipulating the environment in order to avoid enemy attacks and collect all the hearts, which upon doing so, allows you to proceed. Does this sound familiar? It should. The crate-moving franchise in Japan, Sokoban, seems to have largely inspired Lolo. The biggest change, however, is the inclusion of enemies, some of which will freeze you in place if you cross their line of sight, and kill you instantly.
The levels are neatly drawn and fit the size of your TV screen. There is no scrolling whatsoever, and this makes the challenges a lot less intimidating. The learning curve isn't very high; in the early stages, it's easy to figure out what you have to do and how enemies behave. Some of the challenges really force you to think outside of the box and may take you an hour or more to finish (some of the later levels did, for me.)
It’s a rare type of game which doesn’t have you controlling a shirtless bodybuilder or an anthropomorphic animal, but instead, a ball of blue goop. In this sense, Lolo retains the 80’s charm of innocent game design, which isn’t seen very often today. The creators of the game, HAL, also did the Kirby games and you can tell that style of animation carried over. The background music shares the same type of catchy melodies that you’ll hear in the Kirby games as well.
There was a deliberate decision to not include a timer in this game, and it is a huge blessing to not have to see those numbers ticking away in the upper-hand corner, like so many 80’s NES titles; especially when you have no clue how to advance. It’s evident that the developers actually tested the game out before releasing it, as there’s no way for you to get stuck and have to reset your console. If you get blocked in by an enemy, you can commit suicide by pressing one of the buttons (very handy!) and you’ll restart at the beginning of the level. The developers put a lot of hard work into designing the mazes and as I said before, some of them are HARD.
This is really one of the best games the NES has to offer and easily the best in the puzzle genre. Every NES owner needs to have a copy of this game in their collection. Buy it now!