Mole Mania

Smashgoom202

Dry Bowser
Retired Wiki Staff
A Game Boy game that was just released on the 3DS's Virtual Console! It was produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, if that means anything to you.

I just downloaded the game, and it's REALLY fun. It's basically a puzzle game where you play as a mole named Muddy, trying to rescue your children and wife from the evil farmer Jinbe (no relation to the Jinbe from One Piece). Muddy must go through 8 areas to rescue your family. The main mechanic is Muddy's ability to dig underground, as well as being able to grab and throw things, more commonly black balls and cabbages. While you CAN get rid of enemies like this, but that's not really the main point. You use the black balls to destroy blocks that, well, block your path (which, incidentally, gets rid of all the enemies anyway by doing so), and if you can knock 5 cabbages into a hole (either dug by you or one that's already there) you get a heart, which refills your health (you get one big heart, which allows 4 hits before you die). There's also this old mole who helps you with tips (through signposts) and occasionally recovering your health, and there's a bonus stage in each area, which you must complete in order to get 100 points.

Yeah, each area you can win up to 100 points. You do this by beating the bonus stage, collecting all the items, include a map of the stage, knocking all 20 cabbages into holes, etc.

There's a boss at the end of each stage. So far, I've beaten two. The first boss is a kangaroo, which you beat by placing movable needles under it's shadow when it jumps. At first I thought I was supposed to do this when he does one of his "mega jumps", but it turns out he hops to move anyway, and you can just move it under where he's about to land whenever. The second boss is a sun that blinds you with a flash attack. You dig underground to avoid it, and use black balls to knock it into the surrounding water. At first I thought I had to do it repeatedly, but it turns out all I had to do was do it once. It took me a while because it was tricky to knock him in the water, because he keeps moving around it such a way that's hard to hit him...

It's really fun, like I said, it's probably the first puzzle game where I don't feel stupid while playing it, although it can get frustrating at times. Really, you can just leave the area you're on and go back and it instantly clears up the place for you to do your work. That's what I do anyway... It's definitely addicting and makes me want to finish the game more than the other ones I've bought..

Speaking of which, I forget how much it costs, but I think it was around $2.99, which I think it's definitely worth that much.

Muddy for Super Smash Bros. 4! :)
 
Perhaps I'll check it out once I get more money on my eShop account (I skipped over this game in favor of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, which I've been waiting for ever since I heard about this 8-Bit Summer thing).
 
Seems interesting
 
tl;dr

I got Mole Mania today and went through the first two "worlds" in about 40 mintues, might take longer for others. I can't tell if it's gonna get harder, but I get my hands on any puzzle game worth playing.
 
I just beat the fourth world... I actually had to backtrack, because I forgot to pick up the map, and I didn't know where it was. Sometimes I feel good when I figure out difficult puzzles, but sometimes I think if this is REALLY difficult, or if I just can't figure it out as quickly as everyone else... Either way, this is probably one of the only games that has lots of puzzles in it that I DIDN'T use a guide of GameFAQs to use, and for that, I'm proud.
 
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