Chew-Man-Fu (Wii)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 6.7 (3.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Frank Provo
• Reviewed on: 04/20/2007
• Released on: 02/26/2007
• Originally published on GameSpot: Chew-Man-Fu (Wii) Review

Chew Man Fu for the TurboGrafx-16 is a puzzle game that was clearly inspired by 1980s arcade maze crawlers, such as Sega's Pengo and Capcom's Pirate Ship Higemaru. The title refers to the game's antagonist, a sorcerer that has cast a spell robbing the world of all its tastiest foods. To break the spell, you have to help your on-screen character manipulate four colored balls into their appropriate receptacles within 50 different mazes, while avoiding enemies and gobbling up any food or power-up items you come across. Like many puzzle games, the action is repetitive and the presentation is the very definition of plain. However, if you're the sort of person who enjoys maze-based puzzle games, you might just find yourself quickly hooked on the increasingly challenging maze layouts that the game dishes out. On top of that, Chew Man Fu includes a number of bonus features that almost make the 600 Wii points ($6) it costs to download the game from the Virtual Console shop seem like a bargain.

Your character in the game is a young monk with a Princess Leia hairdo. Each maze fills a single screen that consists of various solid walls and soft walls, as well as four monster enemies and four heavy balls of different colors. The action is shown from a top-down viewpoint. Your job is to move each ball into position on top of its appropriate panel before time runs out and without running out of lives. The monsters, of course, are programmed to roam the maze and, in later rounds, to chase after you. One button lets you grab on to balls to push and pull them, while the other lets you kick balls into enemies and against walls. There isn't much more to it than that, apart from keeping an eye out for items that can give you a shield or temporarily get rid of enemies. The game is simple and repetitive, but it's also quite challenging. Enemies reappear after a few seconds, they get smarter in later rounds, and you can easily get into trouble if you smash the wrong wall or leave a ball blocking your path. While the graphics and audio don't flaunt what the TurboGrafx-16 is capable of, the cartoonlike characters and peppy music do have an undeniable charm. The graphics also don't seem as blurry as the graphics in other TurboGrafx-16 games on the Virtual Console, perhaps because the large sprites and simple color schemes make everything stand out.

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