Tendo City

Hexcite was a Game Boy / Game Boy Color dual-mode game, with Super Game Boy support, released in 1998 (Japan, titled as Glocal Hexcite) and 1999 (US/EU). The game does have battery save, unlike many GB puzzle games. I mean it when I say it's addictive -- I've been playing at least a match of this game almost every day for months now, ever since I got the cartridge. I can't say I've done that for too many games before... this game is really, REALLY addictive.

Unfortunately, some other versions of the game stayed in Japan. The game was originally a Japanese board game, but I'm not sure how much Western distribution the boardgame version had or has. Other console ports include a (B&W) Wonderswan version in 2000 (Glocal Hexcite, very much like the GB version), a Playstation version in 1999 (Glocal Hexcite, but enhanced for the more powerful system I think), and a Game Boy Advance version in 2001 (Hexcite: Metal Fusion EX, with new features and such), as well as a cellphone version in the mid 2000s (Hexcite Fusion); this last, cellphone version seems to have been released in the US on some carriers, according to Gamespot, but I don't know for sure. I would love to play them, and will probably at least play the GBA and PSX versions sometime. They look like they have more features than the first game, I'd love to see what they are.

The West finally got another major Hexcite game in 2007, when a PC version was released. I just found out about this -- it's a download-only title on Bigfish Games. I think I will have to buy this now.
http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-gam...index.html



Returning to the first Hexcite game, however, I need to describe how it works. As I said, Hexcite is a puzzle strategy game. In the game, two players take turns filling in a large hexagon with shapes. The large hexagon is broken into seven smaller ones, each of which is broken up into a lot of triangles. There are seven different pieces that the players use to fill in the space. You can rotate pieces to angle them any possible way they could fit. In each game, the players get a somewhat random selection of pieces and try to score the most points. The rules are a little complex, but once you get used to it it makes sense.

http://img.gamefaqs.net/screens/6/6/8/gfs_81970_1_1.jpg

So, in each match the goal is to have the most points. The winner is the one with the most points at the end of the match; in multi-round matches, scores are cumulative and the winner is the one with the higher total across all rounds. Again, each player gets a somewhat random selection of pieces. The piece selection at the beginning is the luck element in this game, and it is important -- some hands will be MUCH harder to get rid of than others. This isn't rigged against you, though, so overall you'll be even between times when the computer crushes you because you get a terrible hand and times when you crush it.

The first player has to play in the central triangle, along its edges with the six surrounding ones. You get five points for each side the piece you play touches, so this is the perfect time to play the largest pieces because that's about the only time you'll be getting 15 points for one, bonuses for filling hexagons excepted. Player one, the human player in single player games, always plays first in the first round, but in multi-round matches, after that it depends on the total score, so the computer will sometimes play first.

On that note, for scoring, you get five points for each side of the polygon you are placing that is touching already placed pieces on the board. However, you are docked for each piece still in your inventory at the end of the game. You lose five points for each side the shape has, so a triangle loses you 15 points while a hexagon loses you 30. Oh, and you must play if you have a play, even if it allows the other player to get more points off of it; you can't pass.

However, and this is important, you can only play if all sides of the polygon you're playing are either fully empty or fully against other pieces. That is, you can't place a piece if a side of the piece you're playing is only halfway against other blocks. Each side must either be against empty space, or fully against placed sides. This rule takes some getting used to.

Also, the player who plays the last triangle in one of the six outer large hexagons on the map and fills it up gets a point bonus. Three are worth 10 points, the other three 30; this is marked on the board with the three or one dots around the edge next to each triangle. There is no bonus for filling the central hexagon.



The seven pieces are shown on the dies of the picture above. These take up a lot of space, but because each side is only one piece long, you'll have no issues with sides being partially covered at least.

First there is a large hexagon. This is the largest piece.

Second is a small triangle, which fills up one space on the board. It's always good to have a good number of these.

Third is a small rectangle. Two spaces. These can be useful.

Fourth is a small trapezoid. Three spaces.

Fifth is the large triangle. Four spaces.

Sixth is the large rectangle -- two large triangles end to end. Eight spaces.

Last is the large trapezoid, three large triangles. These are the biggest pieces and the hardest to play -- each takes up a full half of a hexagon on the board. Play these first, or you likely never will. And be afraid when you have a lot of them and the computer starts with a hexagon, you'll lose a lot of points if you're unlucky.

Remember, size has no effect on point loss, only the number of sides, so small and large rectangles and half hexagons will all cost you 20 points if there are any left at the end, for instance. So don't focus on playing all large pieces first, then smaller ones -- there are many cases where it's smarter to play the small rectangles and trapezoids before the large triangles, as they cost more points if left in your hand.


So, those are the game basics and rules. Now, on to game modes.


The game has One Player, Two Player, Level Game, and Practice mode modes, as well as an options screen. Continue is for continuing a game you suspended.

One Player is for playing a single match; think of this as the quick-action mode. You just choose a number of rounds, difficulty, a few more options (timer on/off, alternate starts or always play first) and go. There are five difficulty level choices. It won't be saving stats or anything, though if you win enough games without saving in the highest difficulty level, on a GBC, you will unlock another difficulty level above that.

Two Player is for a versus game. It's like one player but with two humans, obviously. As this is a turn-based game, you can play two player on a single Game Boy, taking turns, if you wish. If you're playing on a Super Game Boy, the game has two SNES controller support, so that each player can use a separate controller. It's a nice option. It also supports link cable multiplayer if you wish to play it that way.

Level Game is the main single player mode. In this mode you save your progress into one of six slots as you go. In each match you can choose the number of rounds; the default is six, which is what I usually go with. You gain experience as you win matches, and gain ranks once you reach certain experience point levels. Levelling is slow and there are a lot of ranks, so you can play this game for a long time before you hit the max difficulty. This is the mode I play the most.

Practice mode is basically the puzzle mode. See below -- you get specific pieces and try to win. There are sixty puzzles to solve. I kind of hate these puzzle modes, so I haven't played this much. I'm usually so bad at them... For instance, as much as I love Tetris Attack/Puzzle League, I'm hopeless at the 'you have X moves to solve the puzzle' modes in those games. This I like a bit more than that, because of the kind of game it is, but still, I'd rather play the main game.


In the Options screen, the main options of note are the music and color set choices. There are ten music tracks and eight different color sets to choose from, and the SGB and GBC each have their own different color sets. Many GB or GBC puzzle games would have two or three music tracks and one color set, and no battery save either, but this is a better, more feature-rich effort, and I like that about this game -- it feels quite feature-rich. On SGB there are fewer colors on screen of course, but still it does a good job and the game is fun on a television. I'm not sure whether I like the GBC or SGB versions better; the main reason that I mostly play on GBC (well, GBA SP that is) is because I like playing this game while watching TV, and you can't do that with the SGB version. There's a nice help menu here as well with a good, visual tutorial of how to play the game and the rules for the various modes.

The final option is Continue. You can save a game in progress in the pause menu while playing, and you load it here. This is a temporary save -- the file deletes itself when you load it. It's an awesome option to have, temp saves are something all Game Boy games should have had. :)

Returning to my previous point, this is a perfect game to play while watching TV -- the audio doesn't matter, it's just background music, and it's all turn based so if you look up to watch for a while it won't affect the game at all. Also, and I haven't mentioned this yet but it is a real negative (if one of the only ones apart from the fact that that battery is going to die sometime), watching TV while playing is also a good idea because sometimes the AI takes far too long to take a turn. At times I'm waiting a 30 seconds to a minute until the computer finally takes a turn. Maybe those times are exaggerated, but it is true that you can be waiting for a while sometimes. I can understand why it is though, the AI has a good number of different moves to choose from, and that poor, slow GB CPU takes a while to deal with deciding which one to do sometimes. Chess games often had slow move times too. This game isn't as complex as that, but it's enough to have some waiting sometimes. Oh well, I don't feel that this hurts the game much, it's a great, great game, waiting or no. Turning on the timer might help here, but I don't use it so I just deal with the slower speed -- I don't want to have to be limited by a timer myself after all... :)


This is a picture of a game, midgame, with the timer on. There are going to be leftover pieces in this match, I wonder who won... As the board fills up more, playing pieces gets harder and harder.


The lower right shot on the back of the box shows a game nearing the end. As you reach the end of the match, the stakes get high -- both players are trying hard to play as many pieces as possible, without trying to keep the other player from being able to play as many pieces as you can. You need to carefully consider each move, not only in terms of how many points you will get from it, but for what new moves it allows the enemy to do and whether they'll be able to play pieces you'd rather they different -- one of the best ways to win is to stick the computer with large pieces they can't play and watch them lose points for it. Look at all possible moves, and judge which will get you the most points and, in later parts, cost the other player the most points and moves. It's a complicated, strategic game, and that's what I love about it -- you have to think while playing this game. I love it.

On that note, I haven't gotten to the max rank yet, I think. I'm not sure what the top rank is, actually, but currently I'm rank B, level 10; I doubt that's the max. I haven't gained a level in a while, but I imagine I will eventually. Who knows, I'll be playing either way.

Finally, I think I'll have to try the PC version now... looks like it's more of the same, which is great. This game probably works best as a portable title, but still it's awesome that there's another version of Hexcite I can play without importing things from Japan (even if it did come out several years ago, I just didn't know about it)! Here's a shot of the PC version.

Yes, I'm still playing the GB/C version of this game just about every day on my GBA SP. It's such a great, great game, and by now I'm pretty sure that it's my most played game of the year so far this year. I don't think anything else is close... it's just so addictive and brilliant, I keep coming back for more.

So, while I was stuck at that annoying C1/B5 border for way, WAY too long, after I FINALLY managed to get up into higher ranks, the game started progressing normally again. I wonder if I was losing too much, or if there's some bug or something that makes going up a rank take way too long at that point... either way though, now I'm up to A5, the bottom level of rank A, so I've been progressing along well. And yes, it's still very addictive. I change the tile and music options every so often to give it some more variety, but the base gameplay is what keeps me coming back.

Huh, that's cool... at rank A the game adds a timer to the mix, so you can't take too long to take your turns. It's still a pretty long one though so so far it's no problem, but I wonder if it won't get shorter as I get higher up, maybe?

I did eventually beat GBC Hexcite. Got the max rank in the Level Game mode, can't get any higher. Then I unlocked the secret hardest AI difficulty option, which unfortunately is only in One Player mode and not Level Game. It's a bit harder than the last one, but the same strategies that work against all GBC Hexcite AIs still work, so I didn't find it much more challenging to beat. The GBC AI can be exploited if you've played the game enough, which is good, because otherwise, winning Hexcite is quite tough! See how hard the PC game (described below) is on Hard to see an example of that in action. Overall, I wish that GBC Hexcite had a better ending once you get a max rank in Level Game mode, and that the AI at higher levels wasn't quite as exploitable, but this is a really fantastic game I highly recommend. Some version of Hexcite really is a must-try for any strategy or puzzle game fan, and while it has some drawbacks, GBC Hexcite also has some great exclusive features.

Alternately, of course, you can get the PC version, which as I said, I also have. So, here's some more about the PC verson. It's better than the GBC version in some ways, and worse in others. My thoughts --

-It's got no Level Game mode, only an equivalent of One Player and Practice, as well as options. Practice works just like on the GB, solve puzzles. Match Game is the main game mode, and in that you choose your difficulty level, number of rounds, game mode, etc, and then go. The game does keep track of your stats, such as number of wins and losses, best wins and losses, etc. Still, the very limited options are disappointing and hurt the games' longevity.

-No saving a game in progress, I believe. Again, disappointing.
-A new, shorter Hexcite game option is added, Hexcite ES. In this you just play in one hexagon, broken up into six triangular areas which act like the hexagons in regular hexcite -- eg you get the point bonuses for filling them. The larger pieces aren't available in this mode. It's probably less fun than the full game because the smaller, less complex board means that there isn't quite as much to the game, but it's an interesting option and does shorten games.

-10 or so music tracks to choose from, 13 boards, and 13 tilesets, for regular Hexcite. Hexcite ES has just two boards and two tilesets. Hexcite ES isn't in the GBC game, though, so it's nice to have the additional mode! Still, it should have had more tilesets and boards, I think. Sure, most people will probably mostly play the standard mode, but why the huge disparity? As for boards, the different tileset options are cool; on GBC and SGB you have many color-palette options, more choices than you have here, but the basic look of the tiles (color aside) is always the same. With the better graphics of a PC, you can have greater graphical variety, and you see that here. The game looks almost too big blown up to a full PC screen, though... I'm used to the whole board fitting on to a GBC screen! :p

-There are just three difficulty levels, which means there's less difficulty gradient than the GB version, which has many more difficulty tiers as explained above. Intermediate is tough, but there's nothing between that and Beginner. Other than that options are similar. I did find Intermediate surprisingly challenging compared to the GBC game, though -- strategies that work against even the hardest GBC AIs won't work here. The harder AI is great, but I liked winning too, so both ways have their advantages. :p Best would be a game with as many difficulty level options as the GBC, and also the challenge of the PC game, but unless the GBA version is like that (no, I still don't have it; I need to import that sometime!), that doesn't exist. Ah well.

-No long pauses while waiting for the computer to play like in GB Hexcite. :) It's nice to have AI that plays so much faster. Processor power has its benefits. This is probably also why the AI is so tough.

Overall, it's a fine version. The graphics and piece options are nice. I just wish it had some more modes, and this is a perfect handheld game... still though, it's pretty cool that it exists. :) Hexcite is great fun; I like strategy games, and this is a fun strategy board game. This, Blokus, Callisto -- block-placement strategy board games like this are fantastic! I haven't played Hexcite nearly as much in the last few years as I did back in 2011 when I was so hooked to the GBC game, but still, it's a very good game.