This is Boxy Boy for the Turbografx 16. Can this game stand the test of time? Can Boxy Boy stand with Mario, Sonic, and the rest as a classic? And most important: can Boxy Boy earn the most distinguished award in gaming: the Malstrom Award?
The Boxy Boy gameplay was done in other games (probably made by the same company) at this time. I remember Boxxle for the Gameboy which I owned. The stages are identical.
Boxy Boy is a puzzle game where you push boxes onto the dots. And that is all. The simplicity is cool.
What is really cool is that you can press a button that undoes your last move. You can also hold down another button that makes your character run really fast (so you do not waste time walking around).
The menu is awesome because you ‘retry’ the map you are on or, my favorite, TURN OFF THE STUPID MUSIC.
At the beginning, you can choose whatever stage from the ten initial stages. Then, it becomes linear progression.
There also is a construction mode where you can make your own stages.
There are also some strange cutscenes. They are dramatizing pushing crates in a warehouse!
Overall, Boxy Boy is a very inoffensive game. I like that. All you do is push boxes. There is no other premise about it. The game isn’t trying to be something else.
The core gameplay is executed well. I think the makers of this game did everything they could with this sort of gameplay. It’s a shame that this gameplay gets rather boring fast, but it is cool for what it is.
Some people say Neutopia is the Turbografx 16’s clone of Zelda. They are wrong. Boxy Boy is. According to Aonuma, modern Zelda is about ‘puzzles’ and ‘NPCs’. And we know how often we push boxes around in Zelda to solve puzzles. So if NPCs were added to Boxy Boy, we would have an Aonuma-styled Zelda game. I’m not joking here. We would!
Anyway, this game does not earn the blessed Malstrom Award, the award that all games wish they could get (but few ever do). The gameplay just gets stale fast. However, it is as well done as we will ever find this sort of gameplay. It is cool in that regard. Cute game.
UPDATE: Downgraded game to ‘4’ and as something you can skip. This game is nothing but moving boxes onto squares. There is no imagination in this game. Yech!
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