This One Has It All

To be completely honest, when I see that a game has a good visual and audio presentation, I tend to roll my eyes and breath out a sigh. Why is that, you ask? Well, as any fan of computer games could tell you, there are a lot of clone games out there. The way things usually work is that one stellar, unique game hits the market, and that is followed by endless amounts of knock-offs. These "wannabees" if you will, usually spend a lot of time and effort into a fantastic presentation in order to help you forget the fact that the actual gameplay is something that you've played a million times before.

However, that doesn't mean that excellent presentation always equals terrible, overdone game mechanics. Some games offer both fantastic graphics and music and back them up with fun, original gameplay. Fortunately for us, Ouba: The Great Journey is just one of those games.

An Engaging Story

"Welcome to the wonderful village of Oubavillage," the Chief of Oubas will greet you with as you start your journey. He'll tell you about his childhood friend Garouba and how him and Garouba were the best magicians in the village. However, the Chief's powers grew strong and Garouba didn't like that, so he turned to dark magic. Opposed to dark magic and its destructive properties, the village banned Garouba to the dark forest to the north.

However, the village is home to the last remaining waterfall, which is where Oubas get their power. Determined to hog it all for himself, Garouba has returned. Everyone has fled into the surrounding forests, but it's only a matter of time before Garouba finds and imprisons them all.

This is where you come in. With the Chief's aid, you must find and rescue all of the Oubas!

The story may not be the deepest, but it's surprisingly engaging and the wonderful art design really makes it something special.

Fun to be Had

When I first laid eyes on this product and it's colored blocks, I thought that my instincts had been right and it was simply another clone. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that though the premise may be the same - match three or more colored blocks - the mechanics of it are actually quite different.

In most games of this nature, you swap two adjacent pieces in order to make a match. If none can be found, they immediately swap back in place. Here, though, the blocks stay! This means that you can take one block and shuffle it all the way across the game field. This might not seem like a huge difference, but once you start playing, you'll realize how much it changes the entire process!

Oubas will be located at the top of the stacks and if you don't get them down in time, they'll be captured! To save them, you must remove all the blocks from their row. Once the Ouba hits the bottom, it's home free!

The Best Game in a Long Time

I play a lot of games, so I don't need to tell you that I've seen it all. So believe me when I say that Ouba: The Great Journey is one of the best games I've played in a long time.