At only 700 Nintendo Points, ColorZ presents an extremely unique experience to WiiWare enthusiasts at an affordable price, whether they hunger for a game with conniption-taunting challenge or have friends willing to take this perilous journey together. The latter is a more appealing proposition for Nintendojo to recommend, if you have the required friends and controllers. Otherwise, only single players with thick skin, nerves of steel and undying determination should jump into this demanding puzzler.
ColorZ is an intriguing multiplayer concept that feels awfully forced when played by a single person -- it could be called a real challenge in mental gymnastics, but IGN thinks it's more likely that the developers never intended it to be controlled that way and only shoehorned the three-way control scheme in late in development. It's also not going to be friendly to anyone who's ever had trouble with those color recognition test patterns at the eye doctor's office. You know the ones.
Presentation - 7.0
Graphics - 8.0
Sound - 7.5
Gameplay - 5.5
Lasting Appeal - 6.0
Overall -
Gamer 2.0: With co-op being a big feature this generation, it's no surprise that a few developers would try to step it up and go for a self co-op game that challenges your hand-eye coordination in juggling multiple characters at once. ColorZ is a WiiWare game that attempts to do that concept some justice with an added focus on color mixing and matching that turns the inherent difficulty up a notch.
ColorZ manages to create a new experience from an old idea. There are plenty of games out there where you try to avoid enemies or change colors or polarities to be able to absorb bullets, but ColorZ changes things up a bit by focusing more on control thought rather than shooting. The difficulty ramps up pretty quickly, as you are given your second ship on the second level, but through practice, you learn to control both, and then a third, at once.
You can then combine ships to form new colors to get through seemingly-impossible situations, and getting a gold on a level is definitely satisfying. It's like a Mega Man game; you're definitely not going to beat it on your first life, but you'll get there with practice, and it's rewarding to do so.
