pushmo was a series that at the start of last decade was pushed very heavily by nintendo, showing up on both wii-u and 3DS in a bunch of games, both free to play and premium, he really seemed like a potential new hit for the company and something to really push and show off their now burgoning ESHOP survace (boy wasn't that a mistake!) because all of these games were exclusive to it (and are now effectively lost to time and piracy), he's adorable, a cute chibi sumo friend, and his games have super fun puzzles, the aim of each stage, weather abstract or a mural, is to free people that are trapped by pulling and pushing blocks in order to climb up and free them, it's simple but it leaves a lot of room for very fun puzzles, but puzzles that i think get too difficult far too fast for me and that leaves a lot of especially it's postgame as being too inaccessable for me.

while the game is early on it's at its best, starting super simple with just the mild platforming,the pushing and the pulling before slowly introducing stuff like the switches that push or pull blocks for you and holes that you can traverse to teleport, these gimmicks are fun at first but i think they do work to its detriment in the long run as many of the much later and optional stages (which are seperate modes and sometimes have their own mechanics like linked blocks and a snow variation on levels with its own music and aesthetic that i actually prefer to the default level style) are at least for me bordering on impossible and required me to use a guide just to beat, don't get me wrong though, i don't hold it against the game too much because i know i'm bad at these kind of games but it is just something i did want to mention as it did make that late game drag something bad, it's a big game, maybe 15-20 hours just to reach the credits for me (i've been playing this on and off for a whole year now, like this was supposed to come out after the virtua fighter 2 article, it's been that long) and even more if you want to finish all the optional side stuff, add to that the ability to make your own levels and it's a very impressive package especially for someone who at the time may not have had much else to play on the system . one feature i do think is also worth mentioning is its rewind feature which lets you rewind time perfectly to undo things, its a cool feature and one i think more puzzles should have as it does let you really not have to worry about making mistakes, it makes experimentation easy since even a mess up won't ruin your whole puzzle, there's also a cute little overworld for you to traverse, a whole walkable menu between levels, it's small but it's nice its even there, gives the game a more chilled out vibe to me.

aesthetically the game is super cute, it's not quite low poly but it's very kind of wii looking in a positive way, it's bright and easy to see everything and it's really colourful, the snow levels are my favourites though, they don't have the green colour palet of the normal ones and may look a little less colourful overall, but the snow looks great and it's just so much cozier, i just wish these levels were easier or had more hints built in other than just skipping the whole puzzle. the music is excellent too, it's by shoh murakami who also worked on a bunch of other nintendo games of the era like sticker star, fire emblem echoes, origami king and the other pushmo games, there's a lot of fitting music that's super listenable and even a retro melody in here for some of the really special levels later on, the whole ost def has that retro NES vibe to it, it's not wholley chiptune or anything but it has that vibe to it, you know, it's nice and i'll probably use a few songs from this on the site over time.

the game would go on to have one last game in the series, again for eshop with 2015s stretchmo for 3DS and the series has just been dormont since, maybe because nintendo felt more confidant in their eshop because of the world, sadly, moving to digital or maybe just they ran out of ideas, which after 4 games including the prequels pushmo and crashmo, it's difficult to blame you, it's a good premise but you really can only do so much. it was directed by 2 people, misuzu yoshida, who worked on the whole series as well as games like game & wario and paper mario colour splash and it was also worked on by taku sugioka who has a very simialar body of work but he also worked on mario kart super circut and smash. it was developed by intelligent systems who you 100% know, like, if you're this far into video game net you kinda have to, right? they make games like fire emblem, modern paper mario, wario, code name STEAM, advanced wars and have been involved in games as far back as many early black box nes games, this one specifically was also worked on by SPD who seem to be a support company, working on things like devils third, style savvy, wonderful 101 and spirit track,lots of personal favourites there, good team. pushmo was one of IS's smaller series but it's one they really tried with and it's a shame its been left so much at the wayside for whatever reason, i'd love to see it get a collection for switch because you could totally do it with very few changes, maybe some day.