Chu Chu Rocket for Dreamcast Review

The Story

ChuChus are mice-looking fellows whose ship is being invaded by KapuKapus. They want to get away, but don’t know how or which rocket to board. The only thing they know is to turn right when they hit a wall.

Now the KapuKapus are Space Cats (no, not the cool kind) who want to eat the ChuChus. They also only turn right when they hit a wall. What kind of crazy world is this?

The Gameplay

You have 4 arrows (Up, Down, Left, Right) that you are allowed to play in this game. Depending on the puzzle, the number of arrows will vary. Your screen is a grid on which you must lay down your arrows on in a fashion that allows your mice to hit them and move in that direction. Eventually, your goal is to strategically place the arrows so that when you hit the Start button, they will follow the path you laid down for them so they can enter the spaceship and escape. Keep in mind that you have KapuKapus after you. If they hit an arrow, it will break and you’ll have to replace it. Also, if one of them enters a rocket, 1/3 of your ChuChus will be lost.

What makes the game fun and have lots of replayability is the number of modes. There’s 4-play battle with up to 4 players or computer controlled players. You have Team Battle, which is 2 on 2. Stage Challenge is a mode which has a number of problems for you to solve (similar to puzzle mode).

Puzzle mode has a number of puzzles with varying difficulties. There are usually one or two ways to solve the puzzle. Each difficulty has 25 puzzles. Puzzle Edit allows you to make your own puzzle, which you use to be able to share online. Unfortunately, the Sega servers no longer support the Dreamcast.

The Graphics

The graphics are simple, but effective. The 2D graphics bring me back to the old days of puzzle games and platformers. Since there’s not much really going on, the grid, the obstacles, the enemies, and the ChuChus look smooth and fantastic. Other than that, you have your score and arrows so there’s not much need for beauty in a game like this.

Thompson’s Two Cents

An addicting puzzle game with vast amounts of replay value. Like I said, the names of everything shouldn’t scare you away. Chu Chu Rocket has the ability to keep you addicted like Tetris or Columns or even Sega Swirl. And if you don’t have a Dreamcast, you can find this game on the PS2, Gamecube, and Game Boy systems. Chu Chu away.