So, that's it for the 3DS eShop, another graveyard of cherished exclusives and flash-in-the-pan experiments which Nintendo will unceremoniously move on from. Not us who lived through it, of course (and we're still able to redownload our libraries, which means even the corp's data centers are holding on). The Big N counts on its newer audiences never fully realizing what they're deprived of, but that's where retrospectives and critical writings both on Backloggd and elsewhere can do some good. Countless years of platform history, and the less lionized parts of developers' histories, would otherwise get lost in the shuffle of countless new systems and software libraries. Pushmo is a perfect example of something once notable but now more at risk of broad indifference or revisionism than ever, aided by its publisher's aversion to curating its legacy in a post-Iwata world. And that's a damn shame because Intelligent Systems' puzzle-platformer played an important part in buoying the 3DS' launch year, with an addictive game loop and plenty of replayability even now thanks to level editing and QR codes.
Pushmo strikes me as a peek into an alternate timeline where the Fire Emblem franchise simply didn't recover from its downturn. Int-Sys likely saw the writing on the wall, given all their staff interviews expressing a real fear of, and resignation to, Awakening being the last true entry in that series. They needed what Jupiter Corp. has with its endless Picross series, a forever repeatable puzzle concept appealing to just about everyone in just about any context, keeping their paychecks secure despite the seemingly inevitable death of their prestige IP. So we got this, a modest but meaty killer app which the eShop sorely needed in lieu of upcoming blockbusters. All seemed going to plan, with critical acclaim and constant word of mouth giving Crashmo and Pushmo World on Wii U the greenlight. But then a funny thing happened: that 3DS Fire Emblem game Int-Sys doubted could resurrect that series? It outperformed the previous FE releases combined, setting a new mandate for the company. The Puzzlemo segue suddenly looked a lot more out of place (alarmist, even) than anticipated.
So today we have seemingly no end of Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, and WarioWare goodness from this long-time Nintendo partner, but nothing like their mid-2010s experiments with these cute block-em-ups, let alone anything as out there as Code Name S.T.E.A.M.. It sucks because, unless you're willing to sail the high seas, this part of Int-Sys' back catalog might as well not exist. What precisely does a spate of throwback logic and jumping exercises, set to orchestral chiptunes and a family-friendly exterior, offer to anyone better acquainted with Three Houses or The Origami King? I'd argue that Pushmo represents the developer's talents in their most pure form, though. It's that very lack of frills, thrills, bombast, and grandiosity which this small series proved it could do without, squaring up to the tentpole stuff with such ease and elegance. One might argue there's not much new here beyond the 3D gimmick, but I digress.
The player's goals of rescuing little sumo wrestlers from sabotaged contraptions in a park is simple enough for Int-Sys to launch players through tutorials before they get bored. Yet it's still flexible by the time this game reaches its proper tier of challenge—those later rounds where one must carefully view the puzzle, backtrack from mistakes, and think multiple steps ahead of danger. I definitely wish all of these Puzzlemo installments offered experienced users the ability to skip earlier worlds via some kind of test/exam mode, just to save me some time on replays, but I don't mind the early stages. They stimulate my small pathetic monkey brain every time I hear that wonderful "clear!" jingle, after all. My main issue with Pushmo comes from the lack of added mechanics towards the end, which lets repetition and a feeling of sameness creep in. Solving pixel art murals is fun much like in Jupiter's nonogram paradigm, but not quite enough.
Even with its limited scope and novelty, I find it super rewarding to revisit Pushmo on Citra today. Quite a few WarioWare staffers led development on this and the rest of the series, hence its ease in activating that "one more turn!" sensation. Each world's paced and sequenced appropriately, feeling like a gentle upward climb vs. the difficulty cliffside that Crashmo provides. This linear mastery of pushing and pulling, navigating tight jumps, cutting off your escape to proceed higher…it all adds up once you reach the bonus worlds, full of homage to Nintendo icons and classic puzzling. Another important piece of the progression is unlocking new options in the level editor, a very relevant feature given how well the game teaches you to recognize and reproduce smart designs. I never got the full experience of building puzzles and sharing them with friends via QRs, sadly, but I can't imagine the lack of said feature here and in the sequels. That same joy that kids made and shared with Lode Runner and Excitebike in the '80s lives on in forms like this, all true to that Family Computer and Game Boy ethos of uncomplicated play.
Much of the game's appeal to me now comes from the aesthetic it promotes. Now, I'm typically not a fella with a penchant for twee or adulterated audiovisuals in my media diet. Anything that feels desperately cuddly, or unwilling to settle on a distinct audience, just seems cowardly to me most of the time. Pushmo avoids this by pairing its Saturday-morning-edutainment look with unassuming but involving brain-teasers, the kind that even adults can sink effort into. This visual style accomplishes a couple things: (a) keeping all elements distinct and readable even when complex, and (b) making me feel like a dumb lil' kindergartner again when I eventually mess up. Some other Nintendo releases from this period went too far in acting cute and patronizing to players—think Skyward Sword or Freakyforms—which is why I think Int-Sys' success here is commendable. Shout-outs to those lovely melodies, too! They're an effortless mind-meld of Famicom-era bleepity bloops and lush orchestration that complement each other maybe too well.
Questions like "where did Puzzlemo go?" bug me for lack of an easy answer. Maybe it's simply the sequels being either too hard for most (Crashmo) or too blithely derivative (Pushmo Worlds). Perhaps the glorious revival of Fire Emblem has shareholders far more excited than safe, profitable but unexciting puzzle ditties. Or it could just be a matter of key people leaving Int-Sys, i.e. the Chao Garden programmers no longer at Sonic Team, and now the developer can't trust itself to live up to this series' high standards. I doubt there's anything nefarious behind them abandoning these scrimblos to the eShop wastes, though it's examples like this which add credence to fan theories about Humble vs. Arrogant Nintendo. Whatever the case, I still hold out some hope for anything that can recapture the impact this underdog achieved. Some will say Pushmo only did so for lack of anything better at the time, but the series' absence on Switch feels like a gaping wound. Nintendo's big enough to shove endless employee prototypes into the trash, yet they somehow can't produce any meaningful iterations of this, or Pilotwings, or F-Zero like they once did? Things aren't adding up, and that wouldn't make Mallo or Papa Blox happy. Until this issue's resolved with more 'mo, I'm just glad to find the originals so approachable now. There's always indie-scene puzzlers if I really need something new, albeit rarely as polished and fine-tuned as this.
Pushmo strikes me as a peek into an alternate timeline where the Fire Emblem franchise simply didn't recover from its downturn. Int-Sys likely saw the writing on the wall, given all their staff interviews expressing a real fear of, and resignation to, Awakening being the last true entry in that series. They needed what Jupiter Corp. has with its endless Picross series, a forever repeatable puzzle concept appealing to just about everyone in just about any context, keeping their paychecks secure despite the seemingly inevitable death of their prestige IP. So we got this, a modest but meaty killer app which the eShop sorely needed in lieu of upcoming blockbusters. All seemed going to plan, with critical acclaim and constant word of mouth giving Crashmo and Pushmo World on Wii U the greenlight. But then a funny thing happened: that 3DS Fire Emblem game Int-Sys doubted could resurrect that series? It outperformed the previous FE releases combined, setting a new mandate for the company. The Puzzlemo segue suddenly looked a lot more out of place (alarmist, even) than anticipated.
So today we have seemingly no end of Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, and WarioWare goodness from this long-time Nintendo partner, but nothing like their mid-2010s experiments with these cute block-em-ups, let alone anything as out there as Code Name S.T.E.A.M.. It sucks because, unless you're willing to sail the high seas, this part of Int-Sys' back catalog might as well not exist. What precisely does a spate of throwback logic and jumping exercises, set to orchestral chiptunes and a family-friendly exterior, offer to anyone better acquainted with Three Houses or The Origami King? I'd argue that Pushmo represents the developer's talents in their most pure form, though. It's that very lack of frills, thrills, bombast, and grandiosity which this small series proved it could do without, squaring up to the tentpole stuff with such ease and elegance. One might argue there's not much new here beyond the 3D gimmick, but I digress.
The player's goals of rescuing little sumo wrestlers from sabotaged contraptions in a park is simple enough for Int-Sys to launch players through tutorials before they get bored. Yet it's still flexible by the time this game reaches its proper tier of challenge—those later rounds where one must carefully view the puzzle, backtrack from mistakes, and think multiple steps ahead of danger. I definitely wish all of these Puzzlemo installments offered experienced users the ability to skip earlier worlds via some kind of test/exam mode, just to save me some time on replays, but I don't mind the early stages. They stimulate my small pathetic monkey brain every time I hear that wonderful "clear!" jingle, after all. My main issue with Pushmo comes from the lack of added mechanics towards the end, which lets repetition and a feeling of sameness creep in. Solving pixel art murals is fun much like in Jupiter's nonogram paradigm, but not quite enough.
Even with its limited scope and novelty, I find it super rewarding to revisit Pushmo on Citra today. Quite a few WarioWare staffers led development on this and the rest of the series, hence its ease in activating that "one more turn!" sensation. Each world's paced and sequenced appropriately, feeling like a gentle upward climb vs. the difficulty cliffside that Crashmo provides. This linear mastery of pushing and pulling, navigating tight jumps, cutting off your escape to proceed higher…it all adds up once you reach the bonus worlds, full of homage to Nintendo icons and classic puzzling. Another important piece of the progression is unlocking new options in the level editor, a very relevant feature given how well the game teaches you to recognize and reproduce smart designs. I never got the full experience of building puzzles and sharing them with friends via QRs, sadly, but I can't imagine the lack of said feature here and in the sequels. That same joy that kids made and shared with Lode Runner and Excitebike in the '80s lives on in forms like this, all true to that Family Computer and Game Boy ethos of uncomplicated play.
Much of the game's appeal to me now comes from the aesthetic it promotes. Now, I'm typically not a fella with a penchant for twee or adulterated audiovisuals in my media diet. Anything that feels desperately cuddly, or unwilling to settle on a distinct audience, just seems cowardly to me most of the time. Pushmo avoids this by pairing its Saturday-morning-edutainment look with unassuming but involving brain-teasers, the kind that even adults can sink effort into. This visual style accomplishes a couple things: (a) keeping all elements distinct and readable even when complex, and (b) making me feel like a dumb lil' kindergartner again when I eventually mess up. Some other Nintendo releases from this period went too far in acting cute and patronizing to players—think Skyward Sword or Freakyforms—which is why I think Int-Sys' success here is commendable. Shout-outs to those lovely melodies, too! They're an effortless mind-meld of Famicom-era bleepity bloops and lush orchestration that complement each other maybe too well.
Questions like "where did Puzzlemo go?" bug me for lack of an easy answer. Maybe it's simply the sequels being either too hard for most (Crashmo) or too blithely derivative (Pushmo Worlds). Perhaps the glorious revival of Fire Emblem has shareholders far more excited than safe, profitable but unexciting puzzle ditties. Or it could just be a matter of key people leaving Int-Sys, i.e. the Chao Garden programmers no longer at Sonic Team, and now the developer can't trust itself to live up to this series' high standards. I doubt there's anything nefarious behind them abandoning these scrimblos to the eShop wastes, though it's examples like this which add credence to fan theories about Humble vs. Arrogant Nintendo. Whatever the case, I still hold out some hope for anything that can recapture the impact this underdog achieved. Some will say Pushmo only did so for lack of anything better at the time, but the series' absence on Switch feels like a gaping wound. Nintendo's big enough to shove endless employee prototypes into the trash, yet they somehow can't produce any meaningful iterations of this, or Pilotwings, or F-Zero like they once did? Things aren't adding up, and that wouldn't make Mallo or Papa Blox happy. Until this issue's resolved with more 'mo, I'm just glad to find the originals so approachable now. There's always indie-scene puzzlers if I really need something new, albeit rarely as polished and fine-tuned as this.