Topic: Link 'n' Launch First impressions

has anyone downloaded it ?

Official Site :
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/dsiware/kptj/index.html

I just did... will post my thoughts about it as soon as I play it for a bit.

Alright, here goes... my semi-review lol... I love the graphics, the sound, and the tutorial is mighty helpful so make sure to start with that before diving into missions... the learning curve is pretty steep after the first couple of missions... I love the puzzle aspect but you also have to be strategic or you'll bump into the left and right "walls" and your game is over. I'm only on the third mission but have pretty much gotten a great feel for this game and while it does get quite difficult around mission 3, I find it to be a great value and a very innovative game for dsiware!

I like this one a lot. It has a good feel, a good tutorial, nice graphics, and is an overall great game. It isn't the best on the system, but it's better than most of the games on here. I'd give it an 8/10, possibly even a 9/10.

It's kinda frustating that the tile we want to flip just can be rotated, the strategy to move other tile near the tile we want to move is needed...

Birdman... I agree with you, I would give it a 8/10.

Yeah, that whole we can't just rotate a tile is annoying ... I may have to go through the tutorial again to try to remember that.

Definitely a nice game, Intelligent Systems did a good job with this.

Thanks for your impressions , It seems like a good game .

IGN Review :

Link 'n' Launch
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points

Review By: Craig Harris

When you see a team's name like Intelligent System on the bottom of a DSiWare game release, you sit up and take notice. These are the guys that truly know the Nintendo systems and come up with some truly great stuff. And this is, indeed, great stuff.

The puzzle game isn't a huge stretch from your typical "Pipe Dream" design: connect pipe piece tiles together to create a complete network from Point A to B. Point A, in this case, is a fuel source, and Point B is one of three boosters on your rocket. The task: launch your rocket to the next planet by solving puzzles.

The twist: you can direct your fuel into specific boosters to launch towards the right or left -- if you wander off course too much, you'll lose the mission. Ditto if you take too long trying to figure out how to get fuel to the left side of your ship. Luckily there are power-ups that'll upgrade your ship and get it higher into space, as well as timer pick-ups that'll add a few seconds to your game clock.

Link 'n' Launch is a wonderful extension of an existing, addictive puzzle design, and there's that Intelligent Systems polish that gives it just enough personality to make it its own game. Definitely one of the top DSi games in the DSi Shop.

http://ds.ign.com/articles/105/1058316p1.html

I think I'm going to download this game .

thanks for posting that review armand,you just saved me about half a day looking for ign review on my d.s.i.,(loading times)
on topic: this game is now on my dsiware watch list . also thanks to all of the others who have posted about this game

First impressions (note, whenever I play a game for more than an hour, I generally have a very positive first impression of it. Corbie commented under his review that there could've been more done to keep it fresh, so I wouldn't be surprised if I end up agreeing because that happened to me with games like Big Bang Mini):

Basically I think it's like doing 100 of those number sliding tile puzzles, at the same time during a break while launching in a rocket into space.

I think the presentation (art, sound and pace) is the most important part of this game; if you're not looking to play this puzzle game for the presentation experience, then I don't think it'll have too much to offer. The rocket and puzzle pieces are huge and and clear. The rocket upgrades a few times per run to give you something new to look at. The map is divided into a ton of zones, and it seems like half the zones have a special attribute. The music doesn't stand-out --like say in Pictobits-- but for standard background music it's as good as I could hope for. Haven't paid attention to the other sound, but I'll bet they're getting the job done too.

Technically the gameplay is a non-impressive pipe connection game. Like Aquia, you'll have to practice placing pieces into the formation you require. Unlike Aquia, there's a ton more possible formations to memorize, which also makes it harder and if you stop playing this game for a few months you'll probably be bad at it again. But actually playing reminds me more of DigiDrive than anything (in both you use strategy to build up your desired amount of fuel, and then watch your vehicle blast off.) It ideally only takes a few seconds to make up your solution for each puzzle, and then you get a few second break to watch the rocket travel. It's fun to play, but would probably be boring if someone else was watching.

The puzzles are pre-determined, but the developers have done a great job of designing a ton of interesting quality puzzles. Each of the ten missions even has a theme to it, so you get a ton of replay because you can pick what style of puzzles you want to do. Each mission also adds a new small trick, such as shadow pieces or asteroids. Beating your own high score is really hard and isn't entirely skill based, but it's still fun to attempt even if it means failing a lot.

The timer says three minutes, but with all the breaks and time extensions I'd guess it's 5-10 minutes for each run in the main mission mode. The ranking at the end of each level divides the difficulty into three tiers:
1. The easiest is if you just want to casually play a game.
2. Second gives you a lot of challenge in collecting all the silver medals.
3. And the hardest is if puzzle games are your favourite type of games, or you have to be a perfectionist, you can try to get all the golds.

Overall, I'd have to say if the Art Style series interested you, and you think it could be cool to launch a rocket, then this game is worth checking out. On the menu there seems to be an unlockable, but I haven't unlocked it yet. I'd have to guess it's the credits.

I don't know how far into this game everyone is playing, but there's two minor unlockables when you beat mission mode, including credits. Also, getting at least silver medals in puzzle mode unlocks something that people who love puzzles will like. (Getting all golds in mission mode does nothing, and I'd assume the same goes for puzzle mode.)

I'm tempted to make a Flipnote tutorial that tells you faster how to play better than the included tutorial, but pretty sure no one would use it

To update on my first impressions, I think all the puzzles and medals make the game very replayable, and it'll probably be my go to stylus game, but the overall experience isn't as fun as some other games.

I'd get it. Just post your command and I'll be sure to at least download it.

Looks like I'll have to break it into two parts: one for "math" and one for specific gameplay tips. It's taking a lot longer and not turning out as well as I thought, but I'll get 'er done.

Now that the game's been out a while, what do you guys think of it? I'm considering this but the "repetitiveness" and "overall experience isn't as fun" sort of comments are keeping me hesitant. What's good and bad about it now that we're well past the first impressions stage?

The mission mode is well done, but once you get gold in everything it doesn't do an amazing job of giving you reasons to keep playing, that's probably where the repetitive comments are coming from. The puzzles are similar to Glow Artisan level of quantity and challenge, I think they're good puzzles but don't know how everyone else feels about the pipe theme. Overall great game, but usually I play something else unless killing time with the puzzles.

Have put off the tutorial until I'm caught up on other stuff, but one day...

Holy crap this game pisses me off. I barely managed to get to mission 7, and now I'm hopelessly stuck. I must be missing something, because 3 minutes isn't near enough time for me to get anywhere near my destination. I find the puzzles are just too hard, it's like this game was made for vulcans or some other advanced race capable of thinking in 4 dimensions. My only hope is to randomly try moving blocks around, memorize the solutions when I stumble across them, and hope the ones I've memorized come up. Surely this can't be how this is meant to be played.

That is exactly where I am and I feel the same way. The game is crazy hard and I'm trying to "get it" in terms of getting good at it, but it's hard.

When you have limited time getting fuel to more than one rocket is essential to make progress. There is some demanding quick thinking required in the upper stages to be sure!

I never found effort to get more than one rocket to be helpful. For mission 7 the basic strategy was do each puzzle as quickly as possible. The only specific mission 7 tip I can think of is:
In the puzzles with zero unmovable pipes/walls, your path should be vertically up, or an L-shape. For example, the pink fuel source might be six spaces down and you have 20 random pipes, but in four moves you can have a vertical path through the centre. No thinking required. Most levels have at least one 4-way pipe that you can use as a wildcard if you can't get a piece to fit.

The rest of the puzzles should be really easy, which ones are you getting hung up on? And obviously avoid shadows and comets, and do everything you can to get the X3 time power up paths.