Nintendo Switch – Energy Balance #97

Did you every think you were good at math?

Energy Balance – Nintendo Switch – Released: 1/16/18 – $2.99

Short Review (Review copy provided by Sometimes You)

This game was an interesting experience… Sometimes You has surprised me with a few of their games to be honest. Energy Balance is a puzzle math game that I feel would be right at home in a classroom. It is very complicated in my opinion. The game centers around Meowie and his(?) ship, not really sure of gender of the cat, when it breaks down. Meowie has to figure out math based puzzles that have you match numbers that will add or subtract to a certain number in the circuit. This sounds hard and surprisingly it is but I haven’t been able to put it down. The first hour made me scratch my head several times or giving up completely to reserve for another day. The entire game was played with this style… start new level, can’t figure it out quickly, stops and plays something else. Eventually returning to it and feeling dumb that I didn’t get it the first time. 

I do wish the icon had the ship with Meowie:

Story

Meowie is going on in the ship when the ship reports that they are stuck. The ship proceeds to explain that it would be easy to fix if it didn’t lose the manual. It explains to Meowie that things need to be fixed if they plan on going anywhere so Meowie must fix the circuits. That is about it on story as far as I can see with the objective of each stage to solve the problem. 

Gameplay

This game is pretty simple but hard to do. The idea is to place numbers in the correct order to match the math problem for the line. As I said it sounds easy but given this game jumps quickly to hard mode, it is deceptively easy. You will start off with an easy problem but by the 5th one you will be scratching your head a lot. Due to the multiple circuits and numbers given one number will change the entire puzzle. What seems straight forward for one person may be another person’s nightmare. I found that figuring out one line then moving to the next creates more headaches it was better to slowly work on two rather than one at a time. Doing one at a time results in one line being completely while you can’t figure out why another line is down by one and you have no numbers that work for it.

Personal Experience

Just to point out I love math so this isn’t something that I thought I would have trouble with yet here we are. After many attempts at certain puzzles I started to dislike the game because I knew that even when I finished the game… there was a hardcore mode to check out. The hardcore mode is even harder and I didn’t even want to go further into this hole. I liked the game but given the difficulty it is hard to say if I enjoyed it or enjoyed the feeling of finally being able to figure out a puzzle.

Final Thoughts

This one is a tough call because I had trouble and I love math…. I would say if you think it looks interesting take a chance. You are risking that chance on $3 but $3 isn’t much if you enjoy the game. Other than that it is a pass since the game offers only one game style and it is quick to get hard. I wish it did have a way to give you the solution so you aren’t sitting on a puzzle for days.

UPDATE: 5/31/2018

I would give game a 5 out of 10!

My Gameplay Footage:

 

 

Trailer: (This is the PS4 Trailer)

 

End Credits

Eh, a game that I liked but hard to recommend sadly! I am slowly moving up to the 100th review and I have several games to give away once I hit that mark. I have several games that have to come out but many are ready to be published. I’ve been lazy about recording but that is just because I haven’t had time during the week. This weekend was a bit all over the place with me just watching movies with my girlfriend on Sunday. I highly recommend people to check out “My Life as a Zucchini”, it was an interesting movie about children without parents. It is in claymation and in another language just to let you know. As always check out my next review tomorrow!

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