Fluidity: Spin Cycle - Spinning in the Review

Fluidity: Spin Cycle - Spinning in the Review

Originally Published on the Blast Away the Game Review Facebook Page

Written by Jonny Walker Red

Pros:

• Continued story from previous title. 
• Makes you think with the physics based mechanics
• Playing around with water jets

Cons:

• Having to turn the 3DS completely upside down for some of the levels.
• Fairly straight forward and not as open world as implied
• Goop not being sinister enough

Since this is a continuation of a previous title, one of which I never had the pleasure to enjoy, its niche of fluid based and gravity driven mechanics were a little lost to me. Albeit the game is very well designed, I had no hiccups or bugs while playing. The game was a little simplified for my tastes. Maybe that is why I was so persistent in my attempts to collect everything and get a 100% clear. For those that enjoy puzzlers, color stage design, and a great story to wrap it all up in, this game is worthy of a look-see. 

Final Score: 7.5 out of 10.

 Do you remember a Wii Ware game from back in December of 2010 by the name of Fluidity? Well, if you’re one of the lucky people who actually played this great title, you might want to take a look at its successor, Fluidity: Spin Cycle. 

 Nintendo decided to go with the flow of the game market and take the small title and give it a good ‘ol spit shine and put it on the 3DS system. This title is a physics-based puzzler that’s jumped from twisting and turning the Wii Remote to move the fluid and turned that mechanic on its own head. Now to transgress the levels you must turn the handheld console changing the direction of the gravity in the level. Sounds pretty simple right? Oh how naive was I to think that. Being a self-advocated “pro puzzle solver” amongst my friends, even I was stumped a few times as how to collect everything in the levels. 

 Now that might not be something you’re interested in. To me it was more of a challenge than the core of the game. Being a fairly straight forward game I didn’t get much of a feel that it was as open a world as advertised. 

 That being said, the world and the story were very well put together. They kept with the motif of the game, the doings of a wizard. This title being the same as that of a story book that the wizard liked and wanted it to come to life. He used some rainbow spirits to almost literally bring the book to life. However, there were some evil spirits or Goop that the wizard also had on a shelf above the book, which were jealous of the rainbow spirits. They managed to tip the container they were in and invaded the book holding the rainbow spirits hostage. You play as Eddy, the cheerful water sprite, trying to rescue the rainbow sprites. That right there is something that as a child would have driven me wild with excitement. 

 So being a water sprite in a physic based puzzler, what can you do? What can any blob of water do? To travel around the levels and solve the levels conundrums you gain abilities as you progress increasing the depth of the puzzles. There’s switches you have to flip to flood cogs that you must wash down to the appropriate socket. In later levels you can even turn into a gaseous vapor! Not only that, but turning into a block of ice can help you plow through certain obstacles. 

 Now, as you solved each level being a fluid you’re bound to get some of your body trapped behind a door right? That’s where they have you collecting water droplets throughout the level to use as reserve, should you get spread a little too thin. They even give you the ability early on to accumulate yourself; don’t be too hasty in using that button though. Be cautious. Using that ability too much can cause you to boil away some of your own fluid. This was done to counter the player just holding down the button to not lose any droplets for a higher score. On top of that as part of the physics system you can tilt the 3DS system left and right to affect gravity. There are some spots in levels where you’ll even have to tilt the unit completely upside down. Well, not as much as 100% upside down. I was able to manage those parts just tilting it quite a bit. Now if I had a 3DS system with a recording cable attached it would be a bit more cumbersome to actually do that. Thankfully they didn’t force the mechanic on you a lot. Same could be said for most of the other gimmicks of the game. It is pretty well balanced and doesn’t feel like you’re doing the same things over, and over again.

Fluidity can be found on the Nintendo 3DS eShop for 10.99 USD