Fantavision is mostly eye candy. It takes patience to learn and is repetetive, but you can have some fun playing.
User Rating: 6 | Fantavision PS2
My initial reaction after playing my very first Fantavision level, which lasted less than 3 minutes, was “wow, that sucked.” Of course, you know what they say about trying again, so I started again. And again. It took a few tries to get the hang of it, but I actually started to have fun! The game is challenging enough to make you want to keep trying, and not so easy that you sail right through. The first thing you need to know is don’t bother with the game’s tutorials!! Read the manual instead. The tutorials are very slow, and if you press a button on your controller, it boots you from the tutorial, which means the joy of starting it over. A very monotonous man’s voice speaks, and you wait 7-10 seconds for the next instruction. And the tutorials are view-only; no play is involved. Had I read the manual instead, I’d have been playing a lot sooner. The point of the game is to match up 3 or more firework flares of the same color and detonate them. Sound easy? The flares are constantly moving and eventually fizzle out, and the “flare capture” process is a bit awkward. You use the left analog stick to send out a line from your round cursor, which travels in a circle. When you hit a flare, you press X to capture, and your cursor goes to that flare. Then you catch at least 2 more flares, and detonate. Naturally, you have the requisite wild flares and bonus items. There are a few elements tossed in to try to make the game more interesting…they don’t really succed, though. The flares come in several shapes: daisy, peony, willow, splash, and more. They can also ignite other flares of the same color, if the sparks hit it. The music is pretty good, and the backgrounds are great. While the fireworks aren’t spectacular, at least you can get some pretty awesome chain reactions going. And there is a super-fast bonus mode, called Starmine, that you can pop into if you meet the requirements. What they don’t tell you is starting at stage 3, where you end up in space, the direction the flares come from changes!!! The flares begin coming from the right and slowly rotate. It does provide a nice change of pace. Overall this can be a fun puzzle game if you have the patience to learn it, but I’d only recommend it if you absolutely love puzzle games and can get it cheap. I got mine for $3.99 used, and I am glad I didn’t pay much more for this game. The best feature is the eye candy.
