Chokeshin

It's true what they say: the first bite is with the eyes. Take some simple beans on toast and whack a sprig of parsley on top and all of a sudden your post-pub snack stops looking like something you have eaten once already and more like the sort of thing that Jamie Oliver would be proud to serve the Queen.

If Chokeshin was beans on toast, it would probably be a nice mix of butter and haricot beans in a red wine and sun blushed tomato ragout, served on top of a generous wedge of lightly toasted ciabatta, finished off with a dousing of finely grated Parmesan and some sautéed pine nuts with shallots and garlic butter. In short, Chokeshin is a lovely twist on a humdrum formula with presentation to die for.

That humdrum formula is the match-'em-up puzzler, while the lovely twist is that you have to match all of the different coloured blocks on a grid in as few moves as possible leaving no blocks behind. This removal of one of the match-'em-up genre's staples (i.e. the countdown or dynamic grid, where there are continually new blocks being added, as in Tetris) lends Chokeshin a more thoughtful pace. Unfortunately this refreshingly thoughtful cadence comes at a sometimes infuriating price.

You see, in the absence of this staple, the difficulty has been set to compensate for the fact that you can puzzle over any grid for as long as you like. The beginner puzzles offer a gentle introduction to the game's rules and as you work methodically through to the last of these (there are eight beginner stages) the difficulty curve is set on a manageable but satisfyingly challenging up-swing.

Then stage nine hits you and exposes you for the feeble brained puzzle weakling you really are, utterly demoralizing you until any sense of achievement fizzles into pure baldness-inducing frustration and wrath.

True, it's possible to open up multiple stages at a time by earning medals for completing grids in as few moves as possible. But although fresh grids help to break up the monotony of repeated failed attempts, the feeling is of ferrying your frustration around. This problem is compounded by the omission of a simple in-game tutorial, replaced instead with a menu-based explanation, meaning that any useful tricks for beating the tougher stages have to be painstakingly learnt by studying the earlier stages.

It's a shame because, as mentioned before, Chokeshin is a beautifully presented game. Menus swish smoothly in and out of the screen when navigating options, the style is minimalist and perfumed with pastel tones that do help to sooth the boiling temper the game provokes.

It is also possible that hardcore puzzle fans will relish the tough and methodical gameplay on offer here, and we're willing to accept that perhaps we might have enjoyed the game a little more if our puzzling skills weren't so lacking.

Nevertheless, the omission of a proper tutorial and the presence of a difficulty curve that jumps a bit too abruptly at times narrow Chokeshin's appeal. That said, Chokeshin is a great stab at the match-'em-up puzzler and though it may only entertain the more elite puzzler, few could deny it delivers a winning presentation and elegant new angle on a formula that's already been regurgitated several million times before.