Magical Beat review for PS Vita

Platform: PS Vita
Publisher: ARC System Works
Developer: ARC System Works
Medium: Digital
Players: 1-2
ESRB: E

Normally a puzzle game wonโ€™t grab my attention unless itโ€™s based on some musical hook. Magical Beat falls happily under this umbrella, as a match-three vertical puzzle game, with the twist being that dropping blocks is tied to the beat itself. This formula sounds like it could be hit-or-miss, as most puzzle games are reliant on the pace a player chooses, along with the dreaded necessary evil of what the soundtrack will be like. Threeโ€™s really nothing worse than a music game with bad music.

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Luckily for Magical Beat, it hits its mark on these essentials, with some great little tunes to capitalize on a risky set of mechanics. The match-three element, being a relatively simple puzzle genre, holds a lot water when paired with the fact that youโ€™ll be dropping blocks to the tempo of a song. A meter sitting in the center of the screen will indicate ideal timing for dropping blocks, with BPM changing between levels. This works great, although some may find the rhythmically-dictated gameplay to be intrusive, so feel free to pass on this if youโ€™re the impatient type, or, alternatively, not great with music games.

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While the game keeps things fresh with a different tempo per song, the gameplay will otherwise remain unchanged. Magical Beat may not be a retail-priced game, but itโ€™s a wasteland for variety in gameplay. The inclusion of some typical extra modes would have helped maintain the appeal of a game with no more than single-player in three difficulty levels, local multiplayer, and a playlist mode. Iโ€™m not really sure what the staying power is in Magical beat, past re-playing single-player and waiting until you run into someone else with a Vita and a copy of the game on them.

Then again, maybe you just want to play a puzzle game that syncs to BlazBlue and Guilty Gear songs.

The mechanics are, as mentioned, otherwise solid, although they may not be very deep. Missing a beat penalizes players with a separation of their brick into randomized placement of its three little blocks, which maintains momentum without punishing a lack of precision too fiercely. In regards to something more substantial, a mode based around playing the full duration of a song would have balanced the nature of tracks being capable of completion before the song is halfway through.

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For a $10 game, Magical Beat is a safe bet for anyone who thinks theyโ€™d like a little twist on the straightforward match-three standard. Doubly so, if that person likes music. Itโ€™s not something, however, which youโ€™ll find yourself committing to for any reason other than to enjoy the lightweight gameplay and ankle-deep modes of play. Maybe weโ€™ll see something more substantial in a rhythm-based fighter or something. Think of this as a vacation to typical puzzle games, as it wonโ€™t take long for you to be ready to return home.

Grade: C+
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