Pushmo World (Wii U)
Pushmo World, known instead as Pullblox World in Europe, is the third entry in the Pushmo series of block-climbing puzzlers and yet it doesn’t seem to be interested in bringing much new to the table. Rather than trying to concoct any drastic new mechanics to help it set itself apart from its predecessors, Pushmo World is content to play much like the original Pushmo game, only lightly dabbling in a few fairly safe new concepts. Still, it provides plenty of brand new puzzles in the familiar format and perhaps bringing the 3DS series to the Wii U lead to them wanting to emphasize the strong foundational concept first and foremost. With over 200 levels it certainly isn’t a lean package, so even if it might be almost more a Pushmo level pack, it made sure it had a lot to offer.
In Pushmo World you play as Mallo, a cute sumo character who heads off with a large group of children to play at the bright and colorful Pushmo Park. A Pushmo puzzle normally consists of a flat wall of colorful shapes that Mallo is able to pull out to create a block up to three layers deep. The children seem to enjoy scaling these adjustable Pushmo structures, but Brutus, the dog of Pushmo Park’s owner Papa Blox, unfortunately goes on a tear through the park, hitting the reset switch that reverts all block towers back into their default flat state. The children playing on the structures are thus trapped inside, Mallo heading out to start pulling out the blocks as best he can to scale to the top of each tower to save the child.
The difficulty in Pushmo World is derived from the exact arrangement of shapes you find yourself facing. Mallo can only pull out a block if he has solid footing beneath him, meaning that as you try to climb up a stack, you’ll find it harder to even have the room to pull out new blocks. Luckily, if you can stand to the side of a block you can grab it and tug it out further, but blocks can only pulled outward rather than moved around so you’re only determining how far out each one extends. This means making it to the top to save the child will involve identifying proper footholds and finding ways to pull out blocks to the desired depth, this simple concept thankfully quite easy for the level designers to iterate on. Sometimes you’ll be building straightforward staircases, other times you’ll need to consistently shuffle which shapes are extended or retracted so you can reach other platforms and extend them for later. The game starts you off with a lot of simple shapes delineated by their coloration, earlier levels relying on rectangles and squares only for stages far down the line to take on intricate winding shapes that make their management require more thought and frequent adjustment.
Mallo is able to jump so there’s some flexibility in how the blocks need to be positioned, but even if you do feel you’ve made a mistake you can rewind time a fair deal to get back to an earlier part of your work. This certainly becomes important in later levels where the Pushmo piles become enormous, the player normally only able to see a small section of a massive block structure. You can press a button to view a stage in full, this helping you appreciate some later levels that turn their block structures into recognizable murals. Some of these are based on real world items like a pineapple or accordion while others get a bit more creative with how they represent them like the magician mural featuring a set of birds he’s just produced for you to leap to, but there are also a set of murals based on Nintendo characters, particularly the enemies from Super Mario Bros.. The game is able to make challenging levels that don’t look like much but can also find smart ways to split up structures with a recognizable visual direction so they feel appropriately difficult for when you encounter them, and generally there is a pretty strong approach to puzzle design that makes figuring them out feel achievable despite their sometimes impressive size. Part of this does come from the fact you always need to start from the bottom, the player likely able to simply feel their way up to the summit of a fair few Pushmo puzzles just by doing what’s necessary to effectively climb it. It can be a bit of a shame when a level does just boil down to natural climbing instincts, but there are some elements in place to up the complexity of the trials you encounter.
Gadgets introduce a new way to approach the block-climbing puzzles of Pushmo World. Ladders can appear on top of or underneath blocks, the player able to use them as a way to teleport to another part of the structure. Physics isn’t a concern when it comes to block placement so there are some objects floating in the air that you might only be able to reach via ladder, but at the same time, the manholes containing the ladders will close if both ends aren’t on a block that’s pulled out enough to be accessible. This can impact the arrow gadgets as well. Most arrow gadgets are used to make all blocks of a certain color burst out to their maximum depth of 3 layers, this allowing you to manipulate blocks Mallo might not be able to grab but also in later levels, avoiding the arrow can instead be part of the climbing challenge. Some levels include the technically new arrow gadget that instead makes all blocks of a certain color retract until they’re part of the wall again, this seeing similar use as a tool that lets you do something otherwise impossible or potentially serving as a trap to be avoided.
The majority of puzzles in Pushmo World utilize a mix of the gadgets and just smart and clever arrangements of their blocks to make for a fun low pressure experience where planning ahead is important to success but there’s no danger to toying around with blocks to try and feel your way to a solution. There are other features and types of puzzles to play though, a young boy named Corin hosting two types of them. The Training Pushmo, despite their name, can have some solid designs to figure out as well, their focus often more about providing quick stages to practice mechanics like hopping around or utilizing gadgets but they do a bit more than simply provide a place to learn. Corin’s other game type is totally unique though, the Mysterious Pushmo section instead containing a few new types of play that aren’t huge jumps in concept but can lead to some of the more brain-bending trials Pushmo World offers. These do differ in quality, one of the better Mysterious Pushmo concepts being linked blocks where pulling out or pushing in a block will cause all other blocks of that color to move in the same manner. This simple change leads to the player now managing multiple sections of the structure at once and often needing to plan further ahead to ensure they don’t get trapped. Others instead focus on blocks that will retract after a set amount of time, although some levels of this type feature these more as nuisances or just involve waiting rather than something that really shakes up the formula. These small gimmicks still provide a nice bit of unique variety for this Pushmo title to include to set it apart a touch, but even if Mysterious Pushmo’s 50 stages aren’t your cup of tea, you still have 200 standard levels that ensure you’ll not be found wanting for content.
Despite already plentiful offerings, Pushmo World does offer the ability to acquire more puzzles through Pushmo Studio. Pushmo Studio allows players to create their own Pushmo puzzles and share them, and while the World Pushmo Fair where you could discover player-made levels is now offline thanks to the discontinuation of Miiverse, Pushmo World provides a QR code for each level created meaning you can still find them elsewhere and scan them to play people’s creations. You do need to play a certain amount into the adventure to unlock certain features like the gadgets and even making Pushmo puzzles of a certain size, but this does help an already hearty amount of puzzle-solving play expand even further once you’ve conquered the curated offerings.
THE VERDICT: Pushmo World offers plenty of block-climbing puzzles to make it a worthwhile purchase while surprisingly never feeling like it’s overstuffed. Part of this can be because some levels can be quickly figured out just by doing what comes naturally to climb to the top, but gadgets and the mechanics of Mysterious Pushmo start to expand how much thought you’ll need to put in to overcome some fairly tough challenges. The murals give your work brief injections of novelty and personality so you’re not just looking at a bunch of oddly shaped colorful blocks, and with a pleasant presentation and a level creation tool as well, Pushmo World finds itself a good fit for short quick problem solving as well as more intricate challenges.
And so, I give Pushmo World for Wii U…
A GOOD rating. While providing a wealth of content for the core Pushmo principles does definitely make Pushmo World a heaping helping that’s hard to turn down, Mysterious Pushmo does show the potential for fun experimental designs that could have made the experience more diverse had it pursued the ideas more deeply rather than mostly dabbling in a few variations. In normal play it is fun to shift from standard block arrangements to murals and then the stranger winding shapes of challenge levels, and the gadgets definitely do a lot to keep things fresh even as you start to reach the 200th stage built from the same rules that have been governing most levels. The three-layer system for how far blocks can extend proves to be pretty versatile thanks to ideas like pulling out blocks from the side and there are definitely some levels that get some creative mileage out of how you can scale a stage despite the mechanics remaining simple overall, but cordoning adventurous concepts off in the 50 Mysterious Pushmo puzzles meant the more novel ideas don’t get to be explored as deeply as they might warrant. Once you figure out the simple ins-and-outs of standard Pushmo play though, it can be addictive to push into new stages to try and figure out the way the new shapes can be used to your advantage. Pushmo World makes sure its ideas work well and even gives you the room to build stages yourself so you won’t really find yourself complaining about the breadth of content, and smart ideas like the rewind mean even when puzzles start to become surprisingly demanding, you aren’t going to be locked into a bad decision.
Being the third installment in a series does mean people will likely be hoping for something new, but more of a good thing is hard to argue with. The Wii U in general did have a bit of an issue with major franchises putting in safe sequels that didn’t introduce compelling new mechanics, but Pushmo World happily explores its pre-established puzzle format and it is certainly enjoyable to pit yourself against the block-climbing levels the development team concocted this time around. Rather than ruminating on how adventurous it could have been, it might be better to just enjoy this large selection of well-crafted levels that show the development team still have a knack for building within the Pushmo concept.