Gem Smashers (Nintendo 3DS, 2011)

Product Specs

Description

Players control cute characters that curl up into bouncing balls, for block-busting action and color-coded collisions with animal-trapping gems. The 3DS's 2011 version Gem Smashers is based on Frame Studios' 2003 fixed-screen puzzler for Game Boy Advance. The action looks something like a cross between Breakout and Bubble Bobble, except that the player controls the ball itself (which is actually a cute little character) as it spins and ricochets around the screen. Each level presents a new layout of breakable blocks and differently colored gems, in which innocent forest creatures are entrapped. In order to smash open a gem, the colliding character must be of the same color. Limited magical energy allows the characters to change colors. There are three characters to choose from -- Bau, Bam, and Bom -- and each offers a different mix of speed, spin, and bounce. As the only creatures to have escaped a mad scientist's plot to encase all the animals of the world in magic crystals, they must now use their special powers to set the others free.