Falco Lines II

Puzzles are intriguing to the human mind, probably because the challenge is always exciting, especially if there are no real consequences. Video games are the perfect medium for this, given the fact that we can imagine ourselves in dangerous situations without actually fearing for our lives. The puzzles can also include situations that wouldn’t be possible in real life.

Falco Lines II is an intriguing puzzle game that challenges you to complete levels by scoring as many points as possible. Unfortunately, the game forgets to explain to you how things work and what you should be doing, which means that you have to guess the mechanics on your own, or read the official game description, although that doesn’t help too much either.

In short, the goal is to move colorful jewels around a board and obtain at least five of them in a row, if they are the same color. Jewels spawn around the board after every move, so you never really know what’s going to appear next. This makes it rather difficult to come up with a clear strategy, given the fact that luck seems to have a lot to do with it.

The board is always the same, including the background and the jewels themselves, so it’s difficult to feel like you are making any progress. Since you have to struggle learning the mechanics by yourself in the beginning, you might not even have the patience to complete one round before the game loses its appeal. However, there is a high score system in place, just in case you somehow manage to keep yourself entertained.

The graphics are as basic as possible too, especially since there are barely any animations or special effects. Since the background is always the same, you can pretty much see everything there is to the game from the first few minutes of gameplay. The music gets on your nerves rather quickly as well, but at least that can be turned off.

In the end, the lack of a tutorial and the basic gameplay make it difficult to keep playing Falco Lines II for more than a few minutes. However, things could be improved with a bit more creativity and work.