Mole Mania

If you see a hardcore gamer and mention the name "Shigeru Miyamoto" you'll make them think of Mario, Donkey Kong, the Zelda series and Pikmin, though one of his most forgotten works was the excellent and charming Mole Mania. The god of video games designed this excellent Game Boy puzzler back in the mid 1990's and you can see his touches of genius through out the game.

You control a mole (named Muddy Mole) who needs to rescue his family from an evil farmer called Jinbe by completing a number of puzzles. The player can walk up, down, left or right, as well pushing, pulling and throwing various items and digging underground to defeat enemies and get around obstacles and clear the stage. Each stage is cleared when the player places a big black ball on the gate at the end, though this is often easier said than done as digging in the wrong place may see you needing to start the puzzle again.

Although on the basis of it all the game seems simple it becomes really challenging and you need to think about what your doing before you start the screen. For a game that looks quite cute it become a real case of planning before you start digging random holes in the level...and later on it becomes ridiculously complex and mind boggling as you get more and more obstacles thrown your way. Oddly despite the fact you'll find yourself thinking an awful lot you'll soon find yourself addicted to the game and wasting hours away trying to complete it.

Whilst the gameplay is excellent and the puzzles are wonderful the game also features bright and exciting music that adds to the games charm and sounds incredible for a Game Boy game. Though perhaps this points us to the games biggest issue, it's a Game Boy game. It wasn't given the DX treatment or even the "Advance" treatment of some other games and as a result it's lacking in any real colour  which some players will find off putting. If however you can ignore the dated looks you will find your self falling in love with yet another Miyamoto creation. It's a game that oozes charm, has wonderful gameplay and lots to explore as well as testing your brain, what more could you ask for?

88%

Console-Game Boy
Release-1996 (Japan), 1997 (US, EU)
Developer-Nintendo and Pax Softnica
Genre-Puzzle
Players-1

Trivia:
The game was known as Mogura~Nya in Japan
The game was directed by Masayuki Kameyama, the man behind Donkey Kong '94 which shares a number of similar gameplay ideas with Mole Mania.