Thoroughly Underrated Games You Probably Should Play – 1. Henry Hatsworth & The Puzzling Adventure
Hello and welcome to the very first installment of “Thoroughly Underrated Games You Probably Should Play”, a series of articles in which I (Crofterz) act as some kind of know it all, deity and tell you about some truly brilliant games which may have flown under your gaming radars. In this edition I’m going to be telling you all about “Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure” for the DS which is a brilliant little platformer, puzzler crossover brought to you by the guys and girls at EA.
These days the DS gaming catalogue is massive, from great games like “Professor Layton and the Curious Village” (a fantastical and beautiful looking puzzling solving game) to the absolutely absurd such as “Jam Sessions” (a game which tries to teach you how to play guitar by strumming the touch pad with your stylus…yes I know..and it is as terrible as it sounds) so the chances are that there’s many “gems” out there that you’ve missed and “Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure” is probably one of them.
The game places you in the shoes of a true English gent who goes by the name of “Henry Hatsworth” who also happens to be a very famous explorer and together with his sidekick “Cole” are in search of “The Golden Suit”, a golden gentlemen’s suit which allows the wearer to control “The Puzzle Realm” which enables hidden treasure to be discovered. However after finding part of the suit (“The Golden Bowler”) and putting it on his head, Henry causes an unbalance between the real world and “The Puzzle Realm,” opening the gates for many monsters to come from “The Puzzle Realm” into the real world. However, by tracking down the rest of “The Golden Suit”, Henry can restore order and send the monsters back. Yhat won’t be easy though because Henry isn’t the only one searching for “The Golden Suit”, his arch rival “Leopold Charles Anthony Weasleby the Third” (my vote for the best game character name ever!) is also searching for “The Golden Suit” and with the help of hired guns (the game’s bosses) such as “Lance Banson” (the dashing and daring captain of a fleet of airships), tries to stop Henry in his quest to find the suit. Now if that doesn’t sound awesome then…well…you have no soul.
The gameplay is nothing short of brilliant and it sees you take control of Henry, guiding him through various platforming levels, disposing “Puzzle Realm” baddies and collecting treasure which you can then use to buy upgrades such as extra health, your pretty standard platforming stuff. However the inclusion of a puzzle element is what sets it apart from being just another platformer and adds an extra, strategic layer to the game. You see just by killing enemies with your cane and collecting the treasure they give you, doesn’t mean that they are gone forever. Oh no, you see the touch screen of the DS is actually a puzzle screen which you can swap in and out of (which isn’t as seamless as it could be) and enemies which you kill then form blocks within the puzzle screen. By using simple tetris mechanics you then put coloured blocks or enemy blocks together to get rid of the little buggers. Doing this also charges up a metre which is charged once turns you into super Henry, clad in a gold suit, armed with extra health and armed with a sword rather than a cane. A second of the metre enables you to initiate the rather bizarre “Tea Time” (oddly enough I usually hate the use of typical “English” clichés however because the game is utterly charming and very funny, they avoid from becoming both annoying and insulting) which for a short amount of time sees Henry climb into some kind of robot, mecha suit and go romping around, virtually indestructible (yes it really is as fun as it sounds).
Definitive List of “English” clichés: Bowler hat? Check. Gentlemen's mustache? Check. Monocle? Check. Cup of Tea? Check. Oh no someone go an email EA quick, they've left out horrible, yellowy teeth!
If for some reason you don’t get rid of the enemy blocks and they reach the top, the enemy then re-enters the real world for a short period of time, still in block form, flying at Henry’s head and if connecting, doing quite a lot of damage.
The real strategy comes into play when you add in that you have another meter which actually goes down the longer your in the puzzle screen, meaning that you only get a certain amount of to break some blocks before being kicked out of puzzle mode and have to wait for the meter to fill back up. By forcing you into some time management, it means really have to spend your time down there very carefully, becoming vitally important in the case of boss fights, losing your super Henry status quickly means you have to fight as normal Henry until your meter charges, meaning less health and more likeliness of death. It not all bad though as various power-ups are also available for collection such as the ability to freeze all enemies on the screen for a certain amount of time or the ability to hurt every enemy on the screen and kill them off. There is another catch that like the baddies in the game, the power-ups are collected in the real world and then take the form of blocks in the puzzle screen, breaking the power-up blocks grants you that power, but once they are gone…they are lost forever much like my childhood…ahhhh the good ole days.
Anyway I’ve been rambling on and have probably all bored you to tears so I’m gonna sign off, however before I do I’d just like to point out a few things. First of all this game can be mercilessly hard, especially in the later levels which may leave you scratching your head and thinking “WTF is going on?!” however with a little bit of perseverance these can be tackled and doesn’t detract too much from the game. Also can I just say the look and the sound of the game is just perfect. The art style is utterly charming and the soundtrack is great and all in all these are probably my two favourite things about the game. So go and pick it up because god knows why games like “Scibblenauts” are getting all the hype when a beautiful looking, fun game like this one just aren’t getting the push it deserves. Anyway I best be off…see you with episode two…soon I guess.
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Brilliant little game, defo reccomend you check it out….which is kinda what the article is about….*gets his coat*
I may well do. My kids have DS’s and I often think about stealing them to bring to work with me. Unfortunately their games are all along the lines of Ponies, Puppys and High School Musical. Perhaps if I could pick up some decent DS games I would get a bit of lunch enjoyment out of it. Nice article.
Sounds fun, the kind of game i would enjoy like a cold chicken tika ginsters pasty, or a large tin of sweets on christmas, now all i need is a DS.
Well each to their own Adam..i’ll lend you my DS and the game if you like?
Yeah I played this, it’s a cool game. Really nicely controlled and the puzzle element adds a lot to it. It’s challenging too