Lemmings on Game Gear: the puzzle of guiding little characters to the exit. Intelligently ported to the portable with classic levels. Addictive and thoughtful as always.
Your verdict
Category
Puzzle2 players3+
Description
The player guides Lemmings to the exit by assigning them roles such as digger or blocker in this Game Gear puzzle. Published by Ocean, released in Europe in July 1993. Crowd management puzzle with mindless Lemmings to direct, many assignable roles, progressively difficult levels. European version.
Lemmings review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
1/5
Story
★★★★★
"Anecdotal"
The lemmings are a handful of pixels across, and yet every role is recognisable from a single sign: the digger's pick, the blocker's outstretched arms, the floater's umbrella. The settings, cut into destructible terrain, adopt sharply separated themes, brown rock, bluish metal, green vegetation, so the material to be dug stands apart from empty space.
The soundtrack draws on the folk repertoire and arranges it for three voices: Danny Boy is recognisable, along with English nursery rhymes and public-domain themes handled with simple counterpoint. That choice gives the game a detached cheerfulness at odds with the fate awaiting the little creatures, and each level becomes a tune you hum while thinking.
Gameplay
"Solid"
Fun
"From the very first minutes"
Addictiveness
"Obsessive"
Handing the right job to the right lemming, opening a passage and saving the column before disaster turns every board into a riddle you want to crack in one sitting. The difficulty tightens in small touches and the glimpsed solution drives you to try again without relenting. The cursor handling sometimes lacks precision on a handheld, but the ingenuity demanded keeps an intact magnetic pull.
A port of DMA Design's cult puzzle, Lemmings asks you to guide little suicidal creatures to the exit by assigning roles such as digger, blocker or climber. The spatial thinking, time management and required ingenuity stay brilliant, but the Game Gear's small screen complicates reading the levels and the precision of orders. The genius of the concept shines through nonetheless. For a fan of logic puzzles or someone curious about a genre classic, the title keeps an intelligent challenge, with constrained playability.
