Hands-On Preview: Henry Hatsworth, Holy Awesome

Since when is tea time synonymous with piloting a giant robot? Only since my most highly anticipated DS game since Contact, Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (working title). You may recognize the “Untitled” EA project from the Into the Pixel exhibit at E3. In this platformer/puzzle-gaming hybrid, the top screen is where you’ll run, jump, slash at enemies, and shoot lasers, bombs, and other ammo, whereas the bottom screen is an addictive match-three affair.

As you swashbuckle around with Henry on top (jump with B, melee with Y, ranged with A), fallen enemies become blocks in the puzzle world and drop jewels you can use to buy upgrades. There are enemies that make regular blocks, extra big blocks, shielded blocks, and surely others.

Puzzling can be accomplished either with the D-pad, or stylus/finger action. It’s basically like Bejeweled or Puzzle Quest, except since both enemy and player actions (special moves, power ups) are tied up in the blocks, the dev’s don’t want to have the screen reset, so you can always flip two blocks even if they don’t create a match. You never die, at least in the puzzle world–when the screen fills up, part of the upper crust of blocks will respawn into enemies.

As you knock out blocks on the bottom screen, an energy meter on the right side builds up, giving you youthful energy as well as that groovy Tea Time bonus. When the icon flashes in the middle of the screen, you can tap it quick with your finger to, yes, drink some tea, but also unleash your awesome robot with big punching fists and massive lasers.

Bosses will each have their own ways of messing with the puzzle world. Lance, the one I got to see, is an opera singer who mostly flits around striking healing poses. You can stab at him, but the real damage is done by destroying the musical note blocks he injects into your puzzle, causing a pack of raging fans to take him out. The songs he sings can work against you, though–if you let them sit for too long, they’ll trigger a healing fan mob.

This is the first game I played at the event today, and I sort of wish I could’ve just kept going. There are five worlds, thirty levels, and I’m super keen on experiencing every single one. The Henry Hatsworth game comes out “early ’09″ which I encourage to mean “January 1st.”