Recently there has been a wave of decent budget titles to hit the Gameboy Advance as it is in its waning years. One of these many titles to come down the pipe is this one, Dr. Sudoku. Dr. Sudoku is a small GBA title created to cash in on the recent craze that really exploded this year called Sudoku. Sudoku is a puzzle game commonly misreported as a craze that came from the Land of the Rising Sun (Japan,) but in fact was created by a pack of puzzle constructors in 1970’s New York of all places. History lesson aside, Dr. Sudoku for the GBA is the latest format for this game to be represented to the masses that just can’t get enough of the craze.

Dr. Sudoku has been designed with a simple minimalist design principle involved to keep it as open and easy to use to a long time gamer or someone new to the gaming world. The basic concept of Sudoku is that logic is used to fill out a 9 x 9 grid of squares divided into 3 x 3 sections using the numbers 1 through 9. The trick is that both horizontally and vertically each number can not be repeated so there is only one solution to every puzzle. Dr. Sudoku features both a normal mode and an original mode. Normal mode in this game features 1,000 hand made puzzles broken over 20 levels of difficulty with 50 puzzles in each ranging from very easy to very hard. At the easiest of levels many of the tiles have been already filled in so less thought is involved in solving the puzzle, while on the most difficult you’re completely on your own. In the Original mode of the game this is where your own creative juices come to play as you can create your own puzzles and play them later, and 20 in all can be saved to the cartridge. Complimenting it though are a tiny handful of extra options such as the ability to change the color of play field and musical background scores through three choices, and for the music you do have the choice of just turning it off as well. Aside from a basic trainer on how to play Sudoku, and the tiny choice of options given to the gamer, that essentially is the entire package given to this games’ setup.

While playing Dr. Sudoku, the gamer will find that there is little in the line of flair or wow factor with this game as it has a straight focus on the puzzle at hand. When playing one of the puzzles the gamer has a few options open to work with in managing the puzzle and trying to get a little help as well. Playing the game consists of moving around the cursor and pressing the button to pop up a grid. This grid will have the numbers 1 through 9 listed and you then move within this sub-grid and click on the number you want for your answer. If you are correct it will stick, but if you are wrong it will highlight an error image and show where the wrong number already is located in the puzzle block. When you find you are in a jam in this game help is only a button press away, an R Button press away to be exact. Inside the help section you can then choose a number from the side panel which are the numbers 1 through 9. Pressing the number of your choice once will highlight all of them within the puzzle, and pressing it a second time and red lines will mark the puzzle rows and columns that already have the number. Red X’s will also appear as well to show you where the number you are looking can not be found within a certain 3 x 3 block. Squares that don’t have the red line or the X are possibilities of the location of the right answer. The final piece of assistance found in this game is a memo mode. If you press the L Button while in play it will cause a small square to appear you can move around. Much like normal number placement you can pop up the grid and enter a number, but as it is a memo it won’t count against you. This can be used to take notes on possible answers to the puzzle, and the memos can be later removed by pressing the B Button once you’re finished. The selection of all these numbers and movement through the menus are surprisingly very easy, fast, and intuitive as to not interfere with your time working out the puzzles before you. This essentially is the entire package that is Dr. Sudoku for the Gameboy Advance, just a straight forward puzzle game with no flash or flare other than a simple ‘Victory!’ text that appears when a 9 x 9 grid is solved.

Budget Puzzle
Dr. Sudoku for the Gameboy Advance is all it claims to be and nothing more, a simple game of Sudoku for fans of this type of puzzle. The menus, gameplay area, and even the help are kept to an extreme simplistic minimum just to help the time pass as you think yourself away on finishing another puzzle.

-- Jeff Kennedy