Fluidity: Spin Cycle (3DSWare) Review

Two reviews in one day? What kind of sorcery is this? Our next review comes from a title that released at the end of last year for the Nintendo 3DS eShop. It's a sequel to a WiiWare game, though this one has a different structure to it. Is that new structure for the better? Find out with our review of Fluidity: Spin Cycle (known as Hydroventure: Spin Cycle in PAL territories).

Go With the Flow

Back in 2010, Curve Studios developed a game under the supervision of Nintendo known as Fluidity (or Hydroventure for our PAL pals). The game released on WiiWare, and it involved tilting the Wii Remote to guide a pool of water through a multitude of cleverly designed areas. Two years later and Curve Studios returned to the franchise, this time with a release on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. Fluidity: Spin Cycle is the sequel, and I couldn't be happier to see the little droplet of water that could return to create a new franchise for Nintendo. Is Fluidity's sequel for Nintendo 3DS one that you'll want to take out for a spin?

The "flow" (if you will, har-har) of Fluidity: Spin Cycle has changed immensely from what players got from the WiiWare original. The first Fluidity was very Metroid-like in structure. As you unlocked new abilities, you were granted access to new areas. However, Fluidity: Spin Cycle forgoes this gameplay structure for something more suitable for handheld play. Instead of one huge open world to explore, Spin Cycle is divided up between bite-size levels with the goal of reuniting the male hero with the female water droplet in captivity.

Ah... together at last!

Levels are ingeniously designed, and each introduces a novel concept to the gameplay. You're essentially always interacting in some with the environment as your pool of water. One level has you switching between your water form and ice form to bring a load of treasure from the depths of a castle to the first floor. Others have you sliding over the backs of dinosaurs, using your water to carry gears over to their rightful slots, and some even have you needing to twist and turn your 3DS 180 degrees to play (more on these levels later).

Splash your way through each level,

solving puzzles and defeating enemies.

Each of the game's four worlds ends with a boss level. These are quite clever in how they are designed. For instance, let's talk about the first world's boss. It's a giant spider that spews flames at you. By activating a switch, one spike pops out of the walls on each side of the boss. By tilting the 3DS left and right you can make the spider swing into the spikes to damage its hard shell, eventually weakening it enough that you can enter inside the spider and self-detonate to destroy it. These boss fights add to the immense variety of Fluidity: Spin Cycle.

This first boss fight is seriously creative.

Outside of simply beating levels, which is a task in and of itself, there are two other things that players can do in the majority of levels in Spin Cycle. For one, every level outside of boss battle levels contains a usually well-hidden jigsaw puzzle piece. It will take most of your cunning to find them, and some of them require returning to past levels after a new power of your hero has been unlocked. In addition to puzzle pieces, completionists can look forward to trying to get five stars on each and every level in the game. That's no easy task, as you have to not only collect water orbs to add to your score, but you have to beat levels fast enough so you are awarded a time bonus. These added objectives increase the replay value of Fluidity: Spin Cycle by quite a bit.

Give that stinky T-Rex the bath it deserves!

Your water droplet hero learns various new moves, abilities, and powers throughout the course of Spin Cycle. For one, you can gather your water into one spot so you have more control over your entire puddle of water, and in this form you can later learn the ability to explode, destroying nearby weakened walls and other objects. Like the original Fluidity before it, our favorite water droplet (unless you love Dewy from that one Wii game) can freeze his body, turning into a cube of ice. This allows him to step on and trigger pressure switches to open new areas.

Those who played the original Fluidity should remember that momentum was the name of the game, as well motion controls. This has, for the most part, remained unchanged with the sequel. However, instead of tilting a controller, you're tilting the entire Nintendo 3DS system with Spin Cycle. What may bother some players is having to turn their 3DS upside-down in the levels that require 360 degree movement. It's quite uncomfortable to hold the 3DS the nontraditional way, and this is especially true when you have to use the face buttons for various actions. On my O.G. 3DS I found myself sometimes accidentally pressing the power button, totally losing any of my current progress in a level. That said, if one can adapt to these controls, one will find a worthwhile game.

Don't get dizzy spinning that 3DS of yours around!

Fluidity: Spin Cycle is a treasure to look at, and much improved from its predecessor. Worlds are more colorful, they have much more going on, and characters and enemies animate well. Given that you have to tilt the 3DS, the stereoscopic 3D in the game is unused. On the sound side of the equation, Spin Cycle sports a relaxing soundtrack that is definitely one that players can hum to as they play and replay the game's many levels.

Overall, Fluidity: Spin Cycle is a big improvement over its WiiWare older sibling. The bite-sized levels work wonderfully on a portable, the replay value is definitely there (through finding puzzle pieces and earning a five star rating on every level), and the controls are responsive, even if holding the 3DS upside-down isn't the most comfortable thing to hold in the world. I wholeheartedly welcome Fluidity: Spin Cycle to those who enjoy puzzle-adventure games, those who like innovation, and those who are yearning for something really cool and different on the Nintendo eShop. If you have an interest in Fluidity: Spin Cycle but have not yet picked it up, I have but one thing to say to you (Warning: bad pun approaching): Water you waiting for?!

[SPC Says: 8.5/10]

Review copy provided by Nintendo.

Fluidity: Spin Cycle (3DSWare) First Screens

Fluidity was one of my favorite WiiWare games when it debuted a few years back. It was a game where you used motion controls to guide a amalgamation of water through labyrinthine levels, picking up collectibles to open up new areas. Fluidity: Spin Cycle is the sequel to that game, and these first screens make it look like a competent follow-up. The 3DSWare game contains the same tilting mechanic of the original. Look for Fluidity: Spin Cycle hopefully this year.

Fluidity (WiiWare) Review

This review is two months late, yes, but I only recently acquired this game through the WiiWare service. It was 1200 Nintendo points, and I read and heard a lot of warm praise for this game. It's none other than Fluidity, and it's about time we had another digital download game to review here at SuperPhillip Central! Here's the review.

Have you had your suggested servings of water today?

Like nearly all downloadable services, there are gems that define that downloadable service. One could say that UNO cemented Xbox Live as a place for pedos and socially-awkward losers whereas WipEout HD took PSN to a whole 'nother level. With WiiWare there have been some solid gems from indie developers, and that's really the case with most downloadable services. It's the independent developers that really make a service shine due to low cost and the ability to make a game without needing one-hundred employees to do so. Nintendo's presence on WiiWare hasn't been the strongest. They're more known for giving third parties a shot on WiiWare. When they do develop or in this case publish a WiiWare game, Nintendo Wii owners take note as is the case with Fluidity. Developed by Curve Studios, does Fluidity make for a good game, or will it make you wonder "water" these guys thinking in making this game?

When some nasty ink penetrates a sacred book, the Aquaticus, trouble brews. The pages are covered with this icky black goop, and it's up to your powers to save the day. In Fluidity you tilt the Wii remote to move water through the labyrinthine pages of the Aquaticus, much like how PSP owners played LocoRoco by tilting the playing field to move the little LocoRoco. You flick the Wii remote upward (the game is played solely with the Wii remote in a horizontal fashion) to jump. When in liquid form, you can hold the A button down to gather your pool of water into a nice blob. Hold the button down for too long, however, and your ball of water will explode and splash all over the place. By collecting bubbles of water, you gain more extra lives for when an enemy dries up your amalgamation of aqua or your puddle of H2O is destroyed by a pool of lava. You're then placed at the beginning of the area with most of your work still intact.

Tilt the Wii remote to move your collection
of water through the many mazes of the Aquaticus.

The goal of Fluidity is to prowl the pages of the Aquaticus, searching for rainbow-colored magical drops. These are collected through solving short, medium, or long-length puzzles using the powers of water. One puzzle has you entering hoses as you shoot yourself to a higher platform, nimbly dodging rising and falling fireballs. The premise here is to carry two goldfish from their current bubble prison to a fishbowl through a fiery maze of fire hoses and fireballs. Taking the goldfish back to their home rewards you with a magical drop. Collecting several of these opens up a final area where you enter the heart of darkness, defeating all enemies in the area to unlock the way to the machine that is spewing all of the black goop over the pages of the Aquaticus. By destroying the machine, you open up the next chapter of which there are five.

Magical drops are plentiful throughout the pages of the mystical Aquaticus, and arrows inside the comic panel-like presentation of the book show areas you have and have not completed yet. Each chapter houses a multitude of magical drops that are just waiting for you to collect them, given you have the required skills and know-how. In addition to magical drops, there are also hidden puzzle pieces to collect. These open up mini-games to play. The very first is bringing a series of goldfish to their fishbowls before time runs out and they suffocate.

As I mentioned before, you must possess the required skills to pass a given trial. As you progress through the pages and chapters of the Aquaticus, you earn new abilities and forms. For instance, certain stations can turn your fluid into a solid block of ice or a steady stream of steam. Both have their own abilities to them. Ice can stick to walls, push down hard-to-budge buttons, and be shoved around by catapults whereas steam can fly around levels by tilting the Wii remote on the Z-axis, can suck up items, and electrocute enemies by charging them with solid volts of lightning. Several in-game puzzles require you to alternate between forms to attain magical drops. Fluidity in some ways feels like a Metroid game. As you earn new abilities, you can reach new areas. As you earn more magical drops, you can enter new pages of the Aquaticus. Despite the lack of space pirates and a purple dragon named Ridley, the similarities really end there.

You can change the form of matter by entering one of these vessels.

The platforming and puzzles get particularly more involved and challenging as you go deeper into the game and hit the later chapters. There's spinning platforms, hoses that shoot your liquid out over long distances and dangers, pools of deadly lava, harmful enemies that need to be taken down when vulnerable, pinball tables, pulley systems, and so much more. There's easily over ten hours of content in this 1200 point game-- well worth the money.

Presentation-wise, each world has its own colorful theme from an Aztec-inspired temple grounds to a bustling cityscape. Chapters are divided up into pages just like panels of a comic book to create a really cool effect. The art style uses colorful and cartoony hand-drawn backgrounds along with convincing special effects for the three forms of matter you can become: liquid, solid, and gas. The music doesn't jump out at you. I mean, the game won't earn any scores of the year awards, but it fits nicely for the type of gameplay involved.

The comic book panel presentation is something to marvel at.

Fluidity isn't a perfect downloadable game, however. Sometimes the controls can feel too loose, and there's little in the way of control customization to fix that. Later challenges can simply feel too cheap, requiring precision platforming and jumps. Additionally, it can just be difficult to know how to solve a puzzle without looking at a FAQ or walkthrough (cheater). Other than those problems, Fluidity is a challenging game that oozes with charm and personality. Yes, there are a lot of duds on WiiWare, but make no mistake that Fluidity is not one of such titles. It shows that Curve Studios put a lot of love and care into this game. For 1200 Nintendo points, I think it's time for a water break.

[SuperPhillip Says: 8.75/10]