Few games truly deliver on their promise of being a hybrid of two genres with most following the route of the excellent Gargoyle’s Quest in just alternating between genres (in Capcom’s case platform and RPG) with each new level. Quarth however (originally released for the arcade in 1989 and later ported to the Famicom, MSX and this Game Boy version from 1990) achieves a perfect hybrid between shoot-em-up and puzzler being equal parts Space Invaders and equal parts Tetris.
Despite being ideally suited to the Game Boy’s screen, Quarth only shared a fraction of the success of Tetris. The rules of the game is to select one of six aircraft (unfortunately the differences are merely aesthetic) with the aircraft taking the place of a fixed vertical shooter and fire block pieces at falling Tetris style blocks to form rectangles or squares (where the blocks then disappear) and aim for a high score before a block reaches the bottom line and all aboard the aircraft reach their inevitable death.
Tetris similarities don’t end with the block shapes as both games increase speed in the same subtle way before the Tetris level nine type speed hits. The player is also rewarded for creating larger rectangles/squares earning a score bonus and power-ups. Quarth manages to be both fun and addictive with its simplicity achieving another rare videogame accolade by being one of the smaller percentage of games that instil the player a certain excited tension as the pieces edge closer to causing your doom.
There’s really little to add to this review as there is little else to the game and ultimately it is not as good as the game it seeks to be (Tetris) although that hardly should be at its detriment. What is at its detriment is the Game Boy Link Cable mode enabling a two-player game isn’t replicated in anyway which is a serious issue in Virtual Console emulation. Lack of multiplayer and repetitivity aside: Quarth is an immensely fun and addictive game that Tetris and Space Invaders fans alike should inject into their veins.
7/10
Review by Bri Bri. For more information on Quarth go to http://www.nintendo.co.jp/3ds/eshop/vc/rbqj/index.html
