作者彙整: Ben Reeves

BoxBoy never seemed like the kind of game that would develop into a series. When HAL Laboratory debuted BoxBoy on the 3DS back in 2015, this quirky puzzle platformer with low-fi graphics seemed like an experimental one-off that had somehow squeaked through the greenlight process. Since then, this little square-jawed hero has proven he’s more than a one-hit wonder. For his fourth outing, BoxBoy is joined by BoxGirl and the tall box, Qudy, for a couch co-op friendly adventure filled with some of the most creative and diverse puzzles in the series.

BoxBoy’s mechanics are deceptively simple. You are asked to string together a limited number of boxes to use as stairs, bridges, and other makeshift tools that allow you navigate an austere and obstacle-riddled world. BoxBoy’s plain aesthetic puts a spotlight on HAL’s puzzle design. Early puzzles start off a little too easy, assuming players haven’t engaged with the series before. However, as you slowly unlock new abilities, the puzzles become significantly more captivating and inventive.
 

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Many of BoxBoy + BoxGirl’s puzzles require some out-of-the-box thinking, but I was rarely stumped for more than a few minutes. If you ever get completely stuck, a hint system readily shows you the solution and can keep you from pulling out your hair. I also appreciate that you often have multiple ways to approach each objective. But if you really want to challenge yourself, you can tackle each level with a limited number of boxes, which earns you coins that can be redeemed for oddball cosmetic items. These cosmetics don’t affect the gameplay, but I had a lot of fun dressing up my boxes as cat detectives and balding vampires.

Some old power-ups return. For example, you can still chain boxes together like a grappling hook and zip to new areas, which is always fun. I was particularly surprised by BoxBoy’s new skills, like his ability to fling boxes across the room or pound them into the ground. These new talents seem deceptively simple at first, but their merits are more apparent as you use them and each new level encourages you to use your abilities in novel ways. Every time I unlocked a new set of puzzles, I was surprised by the level of creativity and the unique solutions I was able to engineer from BoxBoy’s offbeat toolset.

But BoxBoy is only one of the stars of this show. A second campaign starring both BoxBoy and BoxGirl allows two players to solve puzzles together. Many of the mechanics and themes from the single-player campaign return, but they are given new life since you have two sets of boxes at your disposal, and you can build increasingly unusual shapes. Some puzzles even ask you to navigate certain characters to specific points in the level, which is a neat twist. You can play through this campaign by yourself, switching between characters on the fly, but I had the most fun coordinating my box stacking with another player.

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A third unlockable campaign stars an extra tall box named Qudy. Since Qudy’s boxes are double-sized, he is able to quickly scale tall platforms and can practically vault over vast gaps. Qudy can rotate horizontally or vertically, which affects the orientation of his boxes. Again, this sounds like a simple change, but it has far-reaching consequences, and I was often left scratching my head trying to figure out how to squeeze Qudy’s awkward body through a series of relatively simple-looking obstacles.

Despite consistent performance over the last several years, this blocky franchise remains relatively obscure, which is a shame because BoxBoy’s adventures are engaging. HAL Laboratory does a great job shaking up the mechanics from one set of levels to the next so the action never grows stale, which seems extra impressive after four entries. We’ve already been given more BoxBoy games than I ever expected, but I hope they don’t stop coming anytime soon.

Score: 8.5

Summary: BoxBoy returns with a couch co-op friendly adventure filled with some of the most creative and diverse puzzles in the series.

Concept: Use simple boxes to create complex shapes and solve a series of clever puzzles

Graphics: The stark, black-and-white world is endearing, and the simple visuals put a spotlight on the stellar puzzle solving

Sound: HAL Laboratory knows how to create light and cheerful background music, and that skill is evident here. Get ready to have the main theme stuck in your head

Playability: The controls are simple, and a few new mechanics add a welcome twists to the puzzle solving

Entertainment: BoxBoy + BoxGirl hits the sweet spot with a series of puzzles that aren’t too hard, but occasionally make you think

Replay: Moderate

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Holding onto power isn’t easy. As El Presidente of a remote island nation, Tropico 6 asks you to oversee your nation’s economy, military, and tourism board. While managing the needs of an ever-growing population is complicated, keeping everyone happy is even harder.

As a nearly all-powerful ruler, you determine your country’s layout, dictating the location of businesses, public transportation routes, and the kinds of crops grown at each plantation. As you build, your nation slowly marches through the decades, and each era introduces better technology. Researching blueprints for new buildings and tourist traps is a good carrot on a stick that keeps you playing. For example, I couldn’t wait to unlock bridge and tunnel technology so I could connect multiple islands together and cut down on commuter time, and I enjoyed watching my city slowly web across the island in an ever-evolving sprawl.

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Unlike previous Tropico games, the lives of your citizens are fully simulated, which means every islander has their own goals, needs, and schedule. This may sound neat, but it means your city’s production is dictated by the whims of your citizens. Tropico 6 tries to automate the output of your farms and factories, so you don’t have to worry about the details, but I often noticed that activity had halted because everyone in a building would suddenly take the week off. Building queues also stack up quickly, because your construction teams take a long time to move from one job site to the next. It’s a good thing you can speed up the clock, but even on the fastest setting, I still spent too much time waiting for things to happen.

Your population is also very judgmental; they have their own opinions on how you should run the country. You can follow troublemakers around the city, fire them from their jobs, and even put out hits on would-be revolutionaries. But dissenters rarely travel alone, so you spend most of your time dealing with political groups. Tropico’s various sects – such as the environmentalists, religious right, and capitalists – won’t always agree with your decisions, and if you ostracize too many people, you’re likely to lose your next election, ending the game. Ultimately, these power dynamics offer some welcome strategy to a city builder, and I got a sick thrill when tinkering with election results to boost my approval ratings.

If you’re ever at a loss for things to do in Tropico 6’s sandbox, its campaign missions direct you through several story-themed missions. These narratives aren’t complex, but they give added purpose to your construction efforts, and I enjoyed the light story moments, such as smuggling gold-filled coconuts out of the country to fund a revolution, or hunting for ancient treasures inside an active volcano. Sadly, the gameplay doesn’t change much over the course of these campaigns, so after a few hours I began to feel like I was doing the same basic things, rebuilding the same infrastructure over and over.

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Tropico 6 manages the fine details fairly well. You can look at heat maps that show you everything from the best place to grow corn to where your citizens have limited entertainment options. A detailed almanac shows you what percentage of your subjects are poor, or how many of them support liberal regimes. Finally, you can pore over a range of trade routes that offer various returns on investment. Overall, these tools handy when you want to maximize your economy and make a sustainable metropolis with a happy population, but examining spreadsheets feels like work.

Naturally, building and managing a city should take work, and Tropico 6’s work can be rewarding. Unfortunately, some accomplishments are bogged down by the slow pace of building and production and a repetitive campaign. You can build an idyllic getaway, but you can’t walk down these streets without tripping over a few potholes.

Score: 7.75

Summary: While managing the needs of an ever-growing population is complicated, keeping everyone happy is even harder.

Concept: Become a dictator of your own tropical island nation and expand your coffers while avoiding revolution

Graphics: Watching inhabitants wander across your creation is fun, but the textures look a little low-fi

Sound: These jazzy Latin beats are catchy, but they are also unrelenting and repetitive

Playability: Citizens take too long to get their work done, but you can issue most commands with only a few clicks of the mouse

Entertainment: New missions and tasks come at a steady clip, so you’re never at a loss for things to do. Even so, I had the most fun when I went off-script and created my own goals

Replay: Moderately High

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The Earth is the only home humanity has ever known, but our planet isn’t a safe haven; nature’s wrath can bring a nation to its knees faster than a marauding army. In Firaxis’ second expansion for Civilization VI, players don’t merely contend with raiding barbarians and two-faced dictators, they must endure mother nature’s temperamental streak.

The influence of Gathering Storm’s ecosystem is evident from the start. Settlers now warn you of potential natural threats before you even found your first city, which is helpful. However, early on, I failed to listen to my people and lost a lot effort when a flooding river washed away one of my districts. Despite the danger, you have good reasons to cozy up near natural danger zones. For example, floodplains and volcanos are often extremely fertile and allow for accelerated city growth. In Gathering Storm, the surrounding environment sometimes feels like a friend, but it also acts as an enemy, like when a sandstorm tore the roof off my capital. This shifting relationship with nature continually pushed me from one risk/reward moment to the next, and the stakes only got higher as my civilization advanced and I had to balance my need for fossil fuels against the devastation of rising sea levels.

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Just as nature has never pushed this hard against my civilizations, I’ve also never had this much control over my environment. New engineering projects like tunnels and dams allow you to circumvent natural dangers and prevent flooding. Hydroelectric dams even provide additional power to your empire, which boosts productivity. Once you move into Civilization’s new future era, you gain access to dream technology that allows you to recapture atmospheric carbon or build seasteads and move your inhabitants onto the ocean. I had a blast playing with this future tech, and even as the world around me descended into chaos, I always felt like I was making progress and unlocking new ways to either fix the planet or spin a bad situation in my favor.

Your actions have the potential to reach beyond your borders and impact every nation on the planet, which is when the world congress comes heavily into play. Once you enter the Medieval Era, the world’s diplomats meet to discuss their problems and propose legislation. In the past, players could largely ignore Civilization VI’s diplomacy, but Gathering Storm offers a good reason to develop a relationship with other nations: political favor.

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As you foster relationships with other countries, you earn diplomatic favors you can cash in to dramatically tip the scales to your benefit. During one world congress meeting, I used favors to ban certain luxury goods, which crippled a rival’s economy. Another time, I struck down a deforestation treaty, which allowed me to exploit the resources in a nearby rainforest. World Congress provides a new meta layer of political strategy that should not be ignored. If you manage congress correctly, you can convince the other world leaders to vote you the world leader, which secures you a diplomatic victory. However, achieving a diplomatic victory takes sustained diplomacy that feels slow, though still rewarding.

The Gathering Storm features a long checklist of other new additions, including 18 new units, 9 new world leaders, 9 new technologies, and 10 new civics. These are all nice little bonuses, but Gathering Storm’s world congress and natural-disaster system are robust enough to make Civilization feel fresh. The Gathering Storm adds new layers to Civilization VI’s incredibly deep strategy system, but taming the planet remains far from simple.

Score: 8.75

Summary: In Firaxis’ second expansion, players must endure mother nature’s temperamental streak.

Concept: Add massive environmental disasters and diplomatic maneuvers to Civilization VI’s incredibly robust empire-building sim

Graphics: The exaggerated characters are full of personality, and the new worldwide disasters are eye-catching

Sound: This soundtrack remains epic and sweeping, but also feels a bit generic

Playability: Civilization VI is already a complex game, and Gathering Storm adds new layers to its interwoven systems. Fortunately, these elements also provide greater richness to Civ’s deep strategy

Entertainment: Growing a small group of settlers into a world-spanning superpower is rewarding at every step

Replay: High

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