Pushmo is a 3D tile-based puzzle game released exclusively on the 3DS eShop back in 2011, the year of release of the console. And it is an oddly charming and cute title fitting for the handheld, the story is pretty much null but the objective is very clear, you're playing as Mallo, a sumo looking lil' guy mascot of the series that must solve these "Pushmo" wall thingies by pushing tiles and climbing to the top of these most of the times, the idea is that all tiles that are connected and are of the same color move along, so with that and the three levels of depth you can move them in the three-dimensional space you basically have a few things to think ahead of when climbing these puzzles, luckily enough you're equipped with a Rewind button so you can fix up any mistakes you make. It's a simple premise, and kind of made so you chip away at it slowly as a sort of "night table" game, you beat a couple of puzzles one day and then come back the next to hopefully beat some more and so on, quintessential grandma gaming basically.

So, this might strike as weird, why do I decide to make a review out of a game this simple? If the game was just baby puzzles this would've ended a while back, but I'm here to expose the absolute demonic intent this game hides behind the cutesy facade...

First of all, this game has a bit of a problem with its difficulty curves, there's no real gradual difficulty and it's all over the place, one puzzle can be absurdly easy but then the other one is hard hard, the indicators with stars that define the difficulty also seem to be off sometimes, I've had some trouble with some three-star puzzles more than I've had with some five-star ones and that's just weird, and this wouldn't be a problem if the hardest puzzles weren't such a headache to figure out. With the medium comes that you have to use much more of your senses to actually play the game, it's not just some crossword that you can do pretty much in automatic, so when a puzzle is very hard instead of getting the satisfaction of beating it you instead beat yourself over it for not getting it, later on they become exponentially longer so it's not really a thing of popping one to play every now and then or before going to bed. (ESPECIALLY looking a those DAMNED Bonus Murals you unlock at the end when you think you're done, they're a nightmare.)

In Pushmo there are also some hidden elements of platforming, it's more seen in the later stages but sometimes it isn't enough to climb up but you need to actually make tight jumps, jump all the way down to go elsewhere to set up a path or make a movement without activating a switch that will move tiles to the front, now, if this is the thing with the later and more difficult stages I have no idea why movement is so limited? There's a lot of jumps that could be done theoretically, and you can even buffer your Zoom Out button for precise frame movements and you'll notice how Mallo is purposefully not allowed to do those jumps, he gets sent back. And then these nerfings work against you in the last stages of the Bonus Murals where you actually need to make some intricate platforming, and that's really annoying because it's not like the 3DS circle pad is the best for those kinds of moves too.

Cutesy and iconic of the long-past Nintendo 3DS eShop era, however could probably have used some more refining to make it more of a zen puzzling experience, but if their objective was to indeed hurt people who think they're smarter than the game (me) then I salute, you've done it. Now take your mid rating and go.