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GBA

Polarium Sequel Announced for Europe

by Lasse Pallesen - March 7, 2006, 2:43 am EST
Total comments: 13 Source: Press Release

The DS puzzle game Polarium gets a sequel to be released on GBA in Europe very soon.

Challenge Yourself With A New Puzzle Every Day Of The Year

Polarium Advance launches on the Game Boy Advance

07 March 2006 – If you like puzzle games you are in for a real treat this year, with the launch of the highly addictive Polarium Advance on the Game Boy Advance. What's more, this game has 365 different puzzles meaning you can challenge your brain with a new one every single day of the year. Polarium Advance launches across Europe on 7th April 2006 exclusively on the Game Boy Advance.

Polarium Advance is a tile based puzzle game, where you must turn reversible black and white tiles to complete identical coloured horizontal rows. However, the twist with Polarium lies in the fact that the player only gets a single stroke. Therefore they must map out an intricate route which flips all the tiles into mono-coloured horizontal lines.

The game's main Stage Mode pits players against a total of 365 puzzles at their own leisure. All of the puzzles are individually dated by the game meaning that players can set themselves the challenge of solving a new one each day of the calendar year. The Daily Polarium setting however, is only a guide - players can complete as many or as few puzzles as they like, unlocking new ones by completing the ones before. Each completed puzzle is automatically added to Polarium Reference Mode, where they are available for selection any time.

Fans of this game's predecessor, Polarium DS, will notice that Polarium Advance features three totally new types of tiles which affect the gameplay. Solid Tiles are chain fixed tiles, which when erased by combining colours, makes the tiles above them fall down. Hurdle Tiles are blue boxes which act as obstacles to the player and Joker Tiles can become either black or white tiles to work in lines of either colour.

As well as the main single player mode, Polarium Advance features a Time Attack Mode, which challenges players to complete a set number of puzzles within the shortest time possible. There are two difficulty settings to try out; Easy 10 mode, which features ten simple puzzles and Hard 5 mode, which pits players against five much harder tile puzzles. All of the top scores from these modes are displayed in the Rankings menu.

Polarium Advance also features a unique Edit Mode allowing gamers to set themselves the ultimate challenge and create up to 100 of their own devilishly tricky puzzles. These can then be selected at any time with the Custom Mode option. Each puzzle created and successfully tested unlocks a password code, allowing the puzzle to be traded.

The fun doesn't stop there either! Owners of the original Nintendo DS Polarium game can share all of their custom puzzles with Polarium Advance using the Password input menu. This game really does have enough tricks up its sleeve to keep even the most avid puzzle fan busy all year!

Polarium Advance launches on 7th April 2006 for the Game Boy Advance at the estimated retail price of around £29.99.

Talkback

KnowsNothingMarch 07, 2006

365 puzzles soudns sexy, but D-Pad control does not...

NephilimMarch 07, 2006

I wonder if they will make a big profit from it?
The ds one was being sold to retailers for 22australia last I saw, that was 6months ago
thu it seemed to sell well, even thu I only know 1 person with it in real life

Flames_of_chaosLukasz Balicki, Staff AlumnusMarch 07, 2006

I still don't get why the sequel is on the GBA instead of the DS.

UncleBobRichard Cook, Guest ContributorMarch 07, 2006

Actually, it always irked me that I couldn't just use the d-pad to control the game in puzzle mode. So this could be nice.

~*Adolph*~March 07, 2006

i don't see the point of this on gba neither.

1) as a buisness standpoint it the polarium userbase was on DS not GBA.
So those who only have GBA will not know what it is and may not be intrested.

2) I thought in puzzlemode the topscreen display that showed previous attempts was brillant and helped allot.
Not sure If I would buy since it will be harder.

3) While the controls were sloppy in the original they could of been tweaked, not sure if control pad will help



so right now where I would of bought it on day one, now its only for europe I might think about importing but honestly I don't care.

darknight06March 07, 2006

Did this game just not sell on the DS or something? It's the only reason I can see them doing this, and even then it's not that good of a reason either.

Flames_of_chaosLukasz Balicki, Staff AlumnusMarch 07, 2006

I believe it did not sell well in the US and it quickly dropped to 19.99 in some store to probably get some sales in.

Ian SaneMarch 07, 2006

I didn't even notice this was a GBA game until reading the replies here. That just seems dumb. I thought Polarium was one of the few really good ideas to use the stylus.

It also doesn't look good if Nintendo successfully translates stylus dependent gameplay to the d-pad. The idea is supposed to be that the stylus does things that were not previously possible.

KDR_11kMarch 07, 2006

I believe it did not sell well in the US and it quickly dropped to 19.99 in some store to probably get some sales in.

I thought that was the MSRP.

Ian: Well, Meteos worked with the dpad as well but good luck getting anywhere with that.

vuduMarch 07, 2006

This game came out in Japan like six months ago, so I don't see why everyone is acting so shocked now.

It's not a sequel, it's more of a director's cut. It has the same 100 puzzles from the original game plus an additional 265 new puzzles. Because it's on GBA the Challenge Mode has been cut (that mode pretty much required the stylus to play). Puzzle mode can easily be played with the D-Pad (see Link's Awakening or the Oracle games for proof).

I need something to stick in my Micro when I'm finished with FFIV, so I'll probably pick this up if it comes to the US.

darknight06March 07, 2006

Around here Polarium was $29.99 MSRP at launch. I believe in Europe it was budget priced, but in the US it was regular price.

KDR_11kMarch 07, 2006

It was 29.95 Euros. Yes, that's budget price. Could have been lower. Grumble...

RennyMarch 07, 2006

I got it cheaper just after the Japanese launch. Every once in awhile Play-Asia puts a non-PS2, non-licensed game in their weekly sale.

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