Simply put, this game is absolutely amazing. Descriptions you hear of this game do it little justice to how much fun it is to play! Even in store demos aren’t enough to give Meteos its fair share. This is one game you really need to sit down and fiddle with for an hour or so to get the hang of it.

The story is very basic. The evil planet Meteo has been launching colored blocks (aptly called Meteos) at other planets to destroy them. Completely by chance three like colored Meteos fused together in one such strike and rocketed back up in the sky taking all of the blocks in its path with it. The inhabitants of this planet realized what they needed to do; they would have to fight fire with fire and send the Meteos back to Meteo. To do this they built a ship out of Meteos Ore called the Metamo Ark. Using this ship they, and you, will battle your way through planet after planet of Meteos attacks in order to destroy Meteo.

Although the story is simple the opening cinematic is breathtaking. After loading the game just watch at the title screen for a minute to watch the animated story. I was really impressed by how great it looked and it certainly helped to make you feel the plight of all the aliens and their fear of Meteo. I just had to mention it because it’s that stunning.

Playing Meteos is deviously simple, just line up three blocks of the same color/shape to launch them back into space. Although each planet has their own unique shape for each Meteo, they always retain the same color for their type. H20 is always blue, Zoo is pink, Soil is tan, etc. There are ten Meteos for you to play with plus another hidden two that will occasionally appear in a level. These other two are quite rare though so don’t expect to see them often. Also, each planet has their own rules for launching Meteos. Sometimes you need to launch them twice to send them off and sometimes you can’t do a vertical launch, it all depends on the planet and there is no way of knowing what will happen until you play it.

Graphically the game looks great, not that you’ll notice because once the Meteos start to fall faster you’ll notice little else. Every planet opens up with an animation of the resident alien, a still of the world, and what kinds of Meteos are in the stage. None of the planets have all the Meteos present at one time and some stages are more abundant in one kind over the others. Each planet has their own particular theme and as such the Meteos reflect that. One planet’s Meteos are reminiscent of Space Invaders; another has brightly colored blocks that fit the techno beat.

Even more impressive than the graphics and styles of every planet is their music. Each planet has a unique song that constantly plays and while that might not seem impressive, let me tell you, it is. You create the music in each level. Taking a cue from Wind Waker, every Meteos you launch has a unique musical chord that plays depending on how you sent it flying. A horizontal launch plays a different tune than if you had vertically launched it and sending the same set of Meteos skyward several times invokes even more impressive flourishes! At first all of your songs will sound the same until you get some practice with the game and are able to perform some of the more complicated multi-launch maneuvers to get the full effect.

Despite having two screens you only really play on one, the lower screen. Even then, the touch screen is not required, but it is more useful than the button controls. The top screen does a variety of things depending on where you are. In the middle of a match it shows the planet or planets you are going up against while two of the inhabitants of your home planet (which is chosen as the last planet you played in Simple or Deluge or you can choose it manually by going under the Options menu and selecting Profile) dance around. In Star Trip mode it shows the map of all the planets. The menu screen makes the best use of the top by showing you extra information about your options that you select on the lower screen.

There are four gameplay modes for you to choose from: Deluge, Star Trip, Simple, and Time War. Deluge is a match where the Meteos keep falling until you fail. At the start this mode is very limiting since you only have four planets to play on. To access more planets for this mode you need to unlock them in the Fusion Room. More on that later. The Star Trip is the story mode for the game and there are three ways to play it. There are Straight, Branch, and Multi routes for you to choose. Straight is, well, pretty straight forward. You play through six randomly chosen planets on your way to Meteo. Branch offers you the option to choose which of the next two planets to go to. There are a lot of options in this mode. Finally there’s the Multi route for you to take. This one is probably the most challenging as each stage pits you against two to three other planets as well as giving you a mission objective. Completing the objective allows you to have your choice between the next two planets, fail it and the game makes it for you. Simple mode allows you to create a game. Choose your planet, opponents, difficulty, and rules and away you go! Time War offers four ways to play. A 2 and 5 minute time war and a 100 and 1,000 Meteo war. Each of these comes with a pre-selected planet and the goal is to get the highest score, and if you can, survive the challenge entirely.

Don’t think that those Meteos you sent flying during the game were the last you’d ever see of them! The game keeps a tally of the Meteos that you’ve collected in every level so that you can use them to purchase items in the Fusion Room. This is where you can create more planets to use in Simple and Deluge. Of course, fusing new planets takes a lot of Meteos so it might not be wise to spend them willy-nilly on the Items or Sounds. Either way, it’ll take you a long time to unlock all of the things in the Fusion Room. Items lets you unlock new items for use in the multiplayer and Sounds gives you access to the music from each planet. The last one is kind of disappointing since only the first 30 sounds of every album are unique. The remainder of the 84 tracks are just the rehashed sound effects that each planet shares such as the game over theme. Last you have Rare Metals. This option allows you to create the two rare Meteos that appear in the game.

Finally you have the Multiplayer. Meteos can be played wirelessly with up to four players and can be played on a single card! Of course this is a limited choice mode so it’s best to have all the players with their own game to get the full experience. Best of all, you can transmit a demo of Meteos to your friends.

Meteos at first seems to be a very simple, easy to play game. Once you get into it, however, it quickly becomes more challenging and exciting at the same time. Like I said before, playing a quick game or two won’t allow you to fully appreciate Meteos. Try out a copy for an hour or two and then decide. That’s how I got hooked.