"To save the country of Eden from the Great Devil's destruction the King of Eden dispatched Princess LALA to seek help. Prince LOLO was requested to accompany LALA back to Eden. On the way back The Great Devil kidnapped LALA right in front of LOLO."
"To save Eden and rescue LALA, Prince LOLO went to the Devil's Haunted Castle. LOLO is not blessed with strength or agility but possesses great courage, high IQ and a lot of patience. Can LOLO save LALA after solving an almost endless series of mazes?"
"The Adventures of Lolo" is perhaps the most widely known puzzle game for the Nintendo. Rather then presenting a game that tested one's ability to leap from platform to platform or one's ability to wander around beating up monsters, this is a game that requires patience and problem solving ability. Our hero Lolo is a small blue sphere with legs and little skill at combat. Each room in the Haunted Castle is actually a puzzle that Lolo must make his way through in order to win the game. The early puzzles are quite simple and require little or no planning, but later on expect things to get a bit more strenuous. Also expect to do lots of shouting and screaming. Most of the later puzzles require that one remember some easily forgettable aspect of gameplay or that you carefully manipulate a large series of blocks. One misstep can mean death for our intrepid adventurer.
The graphics of this game are simple but colorful, and the sounds equally limited. This is perfectly fine simply because in a puzzle game such as this there is no need for flashy effects and impressive noises. On the other hand, the music played in this game is probably going to drive you nuts. There is only one musical track and it repeats itself every 25 seconds, so unless you are drunk you will grow to loathe it very quickly. If you are drunk you will probably begin humming along merrily before much time passes. Regardless, there really should have been more variety in the music.
Puzzles are of course this game's strongest point, and they are indeed well done. Widely varying in complexity and layout, they can take a bit of effort to solve. Despite this, the game flows fairly quickly, and one only tends to get stuck by forgetting or overlooking some little convention required to complete the room. Play control is somewhat less effective, as there are plenty of occasions in which a slight misstep will require that the entire room be redone. Due to it's puzzle driven nature, this game has little replay value, except for those with poor memory.
Summary:
| Graphics : 85% | Simplistic but cute. They get the job done. |
| Audio : 55% | Basic SFX. Very repetitive music. |
| Gameplay : 89% | Excellent puzzles. Clumsy control can result in death. |
| Personal Curve: 95% | I had a fun time winning this game. |
Overall: 81% : A good solid puzzle game with a steady pace and plenty of variety. If you want a break from the games that require little more than mindless repetition and/or manual dexterity, this is a good choice. You will probably want to mute the music and put on something more entertaining though.