It's Mine, All Mine

They always say that the third time’s a charm, but I wasn’t quite feeling that way with Arvale: Short Tales, which I could never really sink my teeth into. When PDAMill announced a new game in the Arvale universe that wasn’t actually RPG based, I suddenly became excited about visiting the ancient land of Arvale again. For the closet puzzle gamer in all you fans of the Arvale series, you won’t be disappointed in Melonchi Minecarts. If you don’t believe me, you at least need to give the demo a try.

Melonchi Minecarts actually has a story mode, and like Short Tales, each "playable" character has his own tale to tell. I’ll let you check that out on your own, however. Regardless of which character you pick or if you choose to play arcade mode, the premise behind the game is the same. You take the helm of your mine cart and traverse a series of increasingly complex track layouts, trying to gather up all of the gems lying about. The trick to this is that in most cases, the track explodes as you cross it! Basically, you must collect all the gems without retracing your steps – or re-crossing your tracks, as it were. Sound a little more challenging now?

In story mode you can choose to play as Duncan, Grwyth or Demenchev. Arvale fans will recognize all of these characters from their appearances in the various RPG sagas. Each character’s story is broken up into 3 segments consisting of 15 levels. There is a set of stills overlaid with text between each set of levels telling you what’s going on as your character progresses through the mines. I enjoyed story mode, but in the first two tales (Duncan and Grwyth) there were just a few puzzles that gave me pause, and only one or two that I had to attempt more than once. In fact, once you figured out a few common patterns most of the puzzles were pretty easy to solve. The main problem, however, was that it felt like the puzzles were out of order from a difficulty standpoint. The last couple of levels on each stage were pretty easy, but some of the ones that came before those were head scratchers. I would have preferred that the toughest puzzles were at the end.

Arcade mode is a little bit different, though the "pattern problem" still persists. I did find the Easy level in arcade mode too easy, but the medium level offered a fair amount of challenge, and the Expert mode keeps you thinking with almost every track. It also helps that the puzzles are different each time. I’m not sure if they are randomly generated, but at least they appear in a different order each time you play.

Graphically, Melonchi Minecarts is vintage Arvale. In other words, the stills and close-ups of the various characters are very well rendered. The tile sets for the levels themselves are good, though nothing spectacular. It was nice to see that the level sets for each of the three characters weren’t identical. For instance, there was a temple tile set in Grwyth’s story that was not used for Duncan. There were little details in the tiles that showed the care taken in drawing them, like water spilling out of holes in the ice levels or a pike with a helmet and torn cape blowing in the breeze in one of the other level sets. Overall the look to the levels was consistent and maintained the quality set in previous Arvale titles.

The sound effects were sufficient to keep the atmosphere of the game alive. Wheels squeaked while rolling along the tracks, followed by the explosions of the freshly crossed tracks. There was also a little ring when you collected a gem. What stood out in the audio department, however, was the music. This is probably some of the best tune-age that has come out of a PDAMill game. What really impressed me was that the music shifted throughout each level. You didn’t have to wait to move from level to the next, or worse yet one stage to the next before being able to hear something different. There was a nice mix of styles as well. In fact, I’ve spent some time working on other things on my computer while just listening to the music from this game. To me that says a lot for a game soundtrack.

I’m sure you’re going to be really shocked when I say this, but Melonchi Minecarts is another well done product from the folks at PDAMill. The audio and visual elements are certainly up to par with previous offerings, both in and outside of the Arvale series. The gameplay was simple yet addictive, as well a puzzle game should contain. My main gripe was in the difficulty balance, especially in story mode. Whether or not you’ve delved into the land of Arvale before, if you’re any sort of puzzle game fan you owe it to yourself to give Melonchi Minecarts a try.

Overall Rating: 7/10