Polarium Advance

by Atlus

Product Features

• Daily Puzzle: 365 days worth of new puzzles for year round entertainment.
• Featuring 3 new types of tiles: Hurdle, Solid, and Joker Tiles for challenging new game play!
• All new color feature allows tiles to come to life with color.

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000IOM44I
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 5 x 1 inches ; 2.4 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: November 21, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #34,517 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

A new and improved edition of the NDS tile-flipping puzzler, Polarium Advance offers all new features that sharpen the brain and accelerate reflexes. Players can access puzzles created on the NDS version, and also switch to new color schemes.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant expansion of the DS game, December 16, 2006

By 

Jeffrey G. Jones (Northern California, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Polarium Advance (Video Game)

Polarium is a game with a simple concept: you're given a pattern of white and black blocks, and your tool is the ability to draw a line through it. Each block it passes through switches color. To clear a puzzle, you need to use one unbroken line to fix all of the rows of blocks on-screen so that each individual row is either all black or all white. If you've played the DS version before, you probably remember that it was challenging, but kind of stark and repetitive. With no special blocks to break up the black-and-white monotony, it got kind of tiring. The stylus control was a good showcase of the DS's abilities, but it was also easy to mess up with all those tiny squares, not to mention you could be blocking your line of sight.

The GBA game fixes all of this. You can change the 'skin' of the blocks you're playing with in the 365-puzzle Daily Mode (which you can play straight - there's no limit to how much you can do in a day), which lets you add a dash of color if you want it. Plus there are new blocks to add to the challenge. When you clear a row of hurdle blocks, everything above it falls into the spaces below. If they don't also make rows of the same color, then you have to change your approach. You'll also get X'ed out blocks in corners and along the edges of the field, which may force you to rethink a puzzle that would have been easy otherwise. Finally, there are Joker tiles, which are not affected by your color-changing line and instead turn into the color of the solid tiles only if they're all the same color.

There's more, too. The first time through a puzzle, you can do it any way you want. Then you can go through it again, and you'll get two markers on the screen. You must start at one marker and end at the other, and you have a limit on the number of blocks you can pass through. You'll first wonder how the heck you're going to solve it that way, but once you figure it out, you'll find it's actually the shortest way to solve the puzzle. Also, when you clear a screen and still have 10 moves left, that's a proud moment.

Great game, far superior to the DS version and highly recommendable for the $20 MSRP.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Thinking Puzzle Challenge, January 19, 2010

By 

Zandaxar (USA) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Polarium Advance (Video Game)

Your playing field is a grid patterned with squares of two colors and neutral border squares. Your goal is to make each row the same color by drawing a single non-crossing path which will flip the squares to the opposite color.

There are three new special types of squares(that are not found in the original DS version, which BTW is also worth getting): ones that block parts of the border limiting your solution pathways, ones that can change into either color, and ones that disappear when a solid row is made allowing squares above it to fall below to make new rows.

After you solve one the first time, you have the option to try and match the official solution in terms of starting and ending points and maximum number of steps. If you do this for enough puzzles you can unlock new color schemes.

Also, there is an additional mode which gives you 10 easy or 5 hard randomly-generated puzzles and then records your best times solving all of them.

Pros:

Puzzles are quite a challenge to figure out on harder levels.
It lets you see your previous attempt at any point while playing, which becomes particularly helpful as the difficulty gradually increases.
383 total puzzles will last most players a really long time.
You can play with one hand.
Has a puzzle editor to make your own.
Can play it on your DS lite/original DS.

Cons:

The officially-intended solution is often not the most efficient solution.
The only way to share your created puzzles with others is through entering a long code.

Comments: Even though the presentation and main concept of this game is simple, it really allows for some challenging solving as the levels get more complex. It is an outstanding puzzle game for those who like to figure out solutions.