Beta Tester Review of the full-release game:
The Abstract, Overall View:
Access is one of those games that takes a good central set of game mechanics and hones them to a fine edge. Doing that is its central goal & achievement over anything else; If you think along the lines of Super Hexagon rather than Infinifactory or Portal 2, you'll know what I mean. All have excellent puzzling, but the former type is meant to be honed over time with leaderboards, whereas the other is more plot driven. Access is meant for short, sharp and repeated stabs during coffee breaks and cool evenings, honing your skills to meet the challenge the game presents. As with Julius Ceasar's kidneys, so with Access.
The Core Gameplay:
Super Puzzle Fighter is the clearest ancestor to Access, with others such as Tetris and (apparently unintentionally) Meteos bearing descent from a more remote distance. Access is not "another SPF clone" though, nor is it even a refinement of the same ruleset (think Serlin's XBLA remix). Instead, it takes the central concept of "block alignment on a 2D grid + explosion gems" and combines it with a drag-and-drop mechanic familiar from other puzzle games. Instead of rotating falling clusters of blocks, you manipulate the board beneath them as they continue to rain down on you.
This takes the entire premise and turns it on its head. Your priorities change on a very fundamental level (admission: I played Super Puzzle Fighter a /lot/). Instead of planning optimal landing sites for your blocks ala Tetris, you now have to plot courses through an ever-changing maze of blocks to create large clusters to explode safely, all the while conserving your Explosion Gems and not ruining the composition of other colours that will take precious time to rebuild.
This also makes combination blocks (which form when you make a 2x2 rectangle or larger of the same color) a risk/reward proposition;- You gamble more points and an indestructable cluster for a wall- You cannot drag blocks "through" these larger ones. Once they've merged, they're sat there, a dangling points reward and a barrier to maneuver around all at once.
Many SPF fundamentals still stand; Build horizontally, don't over-invest in one color or combo, and don't burn your Explosion Gems on piddling amounts unless absolutely necessary, because these are still the key resource of the game; The only way you can clear blocks from the board.
This risk in SPF primarily came from combos; A sudden absence of a large group leading to a bad match, and suddenly you've got a whole lotta blue and no blue Gem. This still occurrs, but it plays a larger role in the "course mapping" that forms the core of Access, and makes the gameplay so fundamentally different in feel & priority than SPF or its predecessors:
When you're running that ever-changing maze, are you going to drag your piece past a Gem on the way?
Are you dragging a Gem, which makes every same-color piece between you and your target-cluster a deadly obstacle?
Are you going to, by dragging "through" it, swap another color block into position next to a matching Gem, and waste the Gem?
All of these are the core gameplay loops you'll need to juggle on the fly, along with the rain of blocks and hi-rise towers that threaten to bring it all to an end.
The Rest:
The music is fantastic. Kubbi has done a fantastic job, and the core game track "Firelight" is a perfect fit for the theme, and in my experience (YMMV, of course) doesn't get old or get in the way of the gameplay.
The characters are minimal. There are simple portraits and character backstories in the Character Select mode of the Arcade Mode, but these are rudimentary;- There is a setting, but no real story to speak of, which makes Arcade Mode more of an introduction, a post-tutorial challenge to get you prepared for the real 'meat' of the game (Marathon & Versus).
The UI is functional, and fits in well with the minimalist, Steins: Gate-style cyberpunk aesthetic. In places it can be confusing (the Controls Menu is quite unintuitive at first using keyboard controls), but overall it does what it needs to, and doesn't get in the way. If the controls issue is fixed, then I would say that the UI is just fine.
Graphics & Accessibility:
As I said at the start, this is a game that you will love for its gameplay mechanics, a game devoted to its gameplay mechanics. This means that any graphics should be in service to either making those mechanics more enjoyable, or to making them clearer. This is my perspective; It may not be yours, but it is how I will review the game herein:
The graphics contribute to the hacker setting without getting in the way of the gameplay, with backgrounds & a theming that makes you feel engaged without crowding out what you're actually doing. I'm back and forth on the character profile-art; It could arguably do with more detail, but I can't see /how/ without breaking the minimalist aesthetic.
There are various Colorblind Options to make sure that the game is accessible (pun intended, if you like). I am not colorblind, so I cannot comment on these, other than that they seem to cover the subtypes I know of.
As someone with ADD, I find many games' flashing, blinking things can distract from the central gameplay. With the final release of Access, I don't find this to be the case overall, with the following caveats: When tired, the 0.00 of the seconds countdown (to new blocks) seems too flickery, and I'd appreciate if the gamma/opacity on the "warning flash" on dangerously high columns could be turned down. If you don't have ADD, this probably isn't going to register enough to be a consideration.
Conclusion:
Above all else, Access achieves what it may not to on the surface; It is a game that mechanically stakes out its own niche as a puzzle game. The combination of influences & mechanics I described above works, and it works well enough to be more than a sum of its parts.
If this is a subgenre that grabs you, Access will get its hooks in you and you will love every minute. It is a "hone your skills during your coffee break" game, and does what it sets out to do well. If you enjoy competing on leaderboards with friends/strangers, improving your skills and playing locally against friends like the games it tips its hat to, then it will be a perfect fit. If you feel like experiencing a fresh twist on a subgenre that's only been thrown tidbits over the past few years in terms of innovation, you'll like this game, too.
If none of the above apply, you may find access lacking in the kind of content you're looking for- Plot, different maps, gameplay modes, achievements. The experience Access strives for is that "in the zone" puzzle-game engagement we've loved since Tetris & co, and has a similar approach to its predecessors to anything that gets in the way of that.
If you're curious, I say go for it- the price-point is perfect for dipping your toes in and seeing if its a good fit, and if it grabs you, you'll love it.
