bit Generations: Dialhex is a Game Boy Advance video game released in 2006 by Nintendo and skip, Ltd. The game was part of the initial batch of bit Generations games. The game was not released in America or Europe, but a remake of the game, titled Art Style: ROTOHEX for the Wii's WiiWare service, was released two years later in 2008. The remake was slightly different, though was instantly recognizable to fans of Dialhex. Gameplay In Dialhex, you turn differently colored triangles on a playing field. The goal of the game is to turn them in a way so that you create a hexagon that contains triangles of the same color. After doing so, you'll be rewarded a set amount of points and the triangles within the hexagon will disappear, with the triangles in the surrounding areas taking their place. The board itself is in the shape of a hexagon, and triangles will continually fall down from the top. Once they hit another triangle, they'll stop moving, waiting for the player to make use of them. If the player has destroyed most of the triangles on the stage, and the amount of triangles is a bare minimum, then they can press the L and R button, or the A and B button, at the same time to cause the triangles that drop to come down faster. The triangles will also start to drop faster as the player progresses through the game. Once you start a new game, you'll be given just two colors (in the start, green and orange). After six hexagons have been created, then another color will be added to the mix, and will start to drop down from above. In all, the colors, including the ones mentioned, are green, orange, yellow, red, blue, purple, cyan, and a darker green. After you've reached a certain point in the game's main mode, you'll be given access to the title's endless mode. In endless mode, you'll keep on going for as long as you possibly can, trying to rank up as many points as possible. The game starts similarly to the title's main mode, and new colors will start to drop just as they did in that mode too. The only difference is that it never ends until the player gets a gameover. In order to unlock the staff credits, you just need to create six cyan hexagons in the game's main mode. After doing this the credits will be available on the game's main screen.
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Dialhex offers a neat concept; you use a hexagon-shaped cursor in a hexagon-shaped field to rotate triangles into hexagon formations using either L and R or A and B. I generally compare the game to Lumines since it has a similar learning curve and can be really counter-intuitive at first. However, after sticking with it for a little while, you'll start to notice patterns that make the game a breeze. So much so that the game has a function to speed up the rate of the incoming triangles if you hold down both L and R (or A and B). Unsurprisingly, it can be a tough challenge to beat the game for the very first time since you need to make six hexagons for eight different colors in the main mode, Solo. By the time you have that many colors in play you may very well be overwhelmed by the sheer variety, but you may consider it a neat little feat to beat this game.
After getting at least halfway through Solo for the first time, you do also unlock an endless mode. Here you only have four colors, and the speed of the triangles' falling gradually speeds up until you reset it by making six matches of the target color assigned to you. It's entertaining and gets the most benefit out of the game's portability. I remember taking this game out and about with me often when I was younger, and apparently I was the Dialhex master because my cart's high score was 709 points. Bonkers. Be sure to take advantage of the game's sleep mode for breaks mid-game, late GBA games commonly had this to save on battery.
There is also a VS mode, but you'll need two of the GBA Wireless Adapters and two copies of the game to play (this also applies to Boundish and Coloris). The goal there being you need to use a "trash heap" to send triangles to your opponent. This heap is built by matching hexagons and is only dumped when you make a match of the target color.
Special shout out to Kazuomi Suzuki's excellent musical range. While the soundtrack in this game isn't as bizarre and soothing as Hiromichi Fujiwari's music in Orbital nor as eclectic as both of their Dotstream tunes are, I dig the simple house and jazz essence the music has. Of course, this does get overshadowed by the significantly deeper score in Rotohex. Speaking of which, I find that this series' music is quite impressive, but its audio samples used are practically too good for the GBA's hacky audio hardware. I'll save further details for some of the later games, but in Dialhex the use of adaptive music is at least a neat touch, if a tad repetitive at times.
Overall my thoughts on Dialhex are pretty neutral. Even before I played Rotohex this one was a bit on the weaker side for me. Perhaps it's a bit too minimal on the offerings for what could be with its learning curve, and as a result the whole experience just feels a little dumbed down. Again, put your money (sike, you'll need to pirate those WiiWare games) on Rotohex, it is the better option unless you are purely in need of a good portable puzzler. But even then you've got better options on the GBA.
Bit Generations series reviews:
Dotstream⠀⠀⠀(Start)
Boundish⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀|
Dialhex⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀|
Coloris⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀|
Orbital⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀|
Digidrive⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀|
Soundvoyager⠀⠀⠀ᐁ (End)