Chime Super Deluxe Review
Chime originally came out on PC and XBLA under a non-profit called OneBigGame and Zoe Mode. For five dollars you got an addicting music/puzzle game and could rest assured that your money had gone to a good cause. Unfortunately that game only had five songs which caused many players to yearn for more out of a game that many have gone as far as to make comparisons to Lumines. Chime Super Deluxe not only brings this game to the PSN but also adds an additional five songs as well as co-op and versus local multiplayer.
The goal of chime is to use Tetris-like blocks to form, at minimum, 3×3 shapes called quads in order to gain coverage of the board you’re playing on. Once you’ve created a quad you then have a short window of time in which you can continue adding pieces to cover a full side of the quad and expand it’s coverage. If you’re too slow the quad will lock in place and you’ll need to start fresh by forming another quad. Forming quads and expanding them create multipliers to boost your score but the main stat you’ll be looking for here is your coverage. Each song requires that you gain 50% coverage before unlocking the next song and with each song using a completely different board design (some boards also include different block shapes) this can sometimes take multiple tries before completing. It’s likely that you won’t have any issue with unlocking songs and even if you do you can choose for each stage to give you 9, 6 or 3 minutes to complete up to 50% coverage. Unlocking songs will also allow you to play that particular song in Free mode where you’re not bound by time constraints and you’re left to simply play and experience the absolute perfection that is the mixture of music and gameplay the game provides. The co-op and versus modes in the game are just as fun as well though I found myself much more excited to be playing the game single player.
Chime Super Deluxe
In order to describe my experience playing Chime I could use a lot of words like “sublime” or phrases like “truly a life changing experience” but to be quite honest reading things like that in a review always sounds like the writer is eating money out of the publisher’s hands. Chime reminded me of something however that many gamers can probably relate to very well. The first night I got to play through Chime I had a terrible headache and really had no interest in gaming whatsoever. Knowing what type of game Chime was though I figured I’d try a song or two before putting a movie on. Four hours later I not only felt better but I’d found myself lost within an incredible experience that much resembled how my time with the game Flower went. While both are totally different games I felt a certain calmness playing these games that not many others provide. While Chime does feature leader boards and a need for some to get the highest possible score as well as competitive modes I couldn’t help but feel a certain happiness just playing the game. It’s not sublime and no it didn’t change my life but Chime is one of the first games in a long time where I could simply sit back, play for a few hours and have a smile across my face the entire time. Tell me, what’s the last time you’ve played a game that could make you say that?
Chime however is not without it’s faults. Some may look at the ten song track list of the game and complain that it’s too short and I would love to see a feature in which we design our own boards to play on. Local multiplayer may disappoint some as well although to me it wasn’t a huge deal. Ultimately I think the ten song list, while small, is totally fine for this game and hopefully people look past it to see Chime for what it really is. One of the best puzzle games we’ve seen in a very long time and some of the most fun you’ll have for ten dollars.
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