I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again; every console launch needs a quality puzzle title. Sega got their act together in pretty much every way with the Sega Dreamcast including this aforementioned fact. Sega had puzzle titles such as Columns and Baku Baku under their belt, but for the launch of this console Sonic Team decided to make an entirely new game. The end result was ChuChu Rocket. Of the titles I missed out on at the launch of the Sega Dreamcast this is the one I was most curious about. This is because it was a phenomenon. Sega fans were ranting and raving about this one in all corners of the internet. I feel guilty that it took me so long to finally try it, but I only just now got my mitts on ChuChu Rocket. Today we’re going to take a look at it.
There’s not much story to speak of here. Interstellar mice (called ChuChus) have had their space station invaded by monstrous cats. As you can imagine they aren’t exactly friends. Your goal is to guide as many mice as possible to the escape ships to evade the hungry feline mouths. In the basic single player mode each stage is presented as an overhead tile based map. Let’s start with the standard method of play. This is the single player puzzle mode. Here you move a cursor around the tile based map and place arrow buttons. These point in different directions, and you have a specific number of tiles per map in particular directions. These are signified by the diamond configuration on the controller itself. Press the A button and that’s a down arrow. The X is left, Y is up, B is right.
Once you’ve placed your tiles you start the action. You have a certain number of mice that move in a set direction until they either hit a wall or one of the tiles you’ve set. In the case of the latter they instantly switch to the direction it points. It’s an incredibly simple concept at its core. The gameplay itself is incredibly complicated. You have to plan several moves in advance to guide your little mice to the rocket ships. The game will endlessly loop if they don’t reach this goal. Thankfully you can reset the stage and try again. This is incredibly painless which is great because you’ll have to try again several times to get it right. This holds especially true when you reach the more complicated puzzles.
The first few stages have just a few barriers. As you progress the cats are introduced. These too wander aimlessly and are confined to the same rules as your mice, but they move slightly faster than them. These also change directions when they hit one of your arrow tiles. ChuChu Rocket often throws them right in your path and if even a single mouse is eaten you have to try the stage over again. This adds several layers of strategy to the mix. In many cases you’ll have to waste a tile to keep the kitties at bay, and other times a stage will become more complicated to keep your mice out of their path. Then ChuChu Rocket starts throwing multiple cats at you, and from here the puzzles become intense brain teasers. The fact that you can retry as many times as necessary, and have no time limit.
That’s a big part of what makes ChuChu Rocket so compelling. You can take all of the time you need to figure things out. ChuChu Rocket regularly wracked my brain experimenting to find ways to complete the stages because there’s only one solution most of the time. It’s also rarely obvious. Whoever planned out these stages put in a lot of love and effort into it. You can also restart a level whenever you want. You’ll spend more time experimenting rather than planning which is unlike most other puzzle titles. The simple concept and design concept makes ChuChu Rocket extremely approachable but almost impossible to master. The puzzle mode is incredibly compelling because of this.
ChuChu Rocket offers other modes of play as well. In particular I found the multiplayer especially addictive. The battle mode occurs in real-time. Up to four human players (or mixed with CPU opponents if you so choose) can compete and each has their own set of mice and rockets. Each player has a play area divided into fourths. You can’t pause the action in this mode, and place your arrow tiles in real time. Things quickly become frantic as you’re trying to guide your (as well as the other players) mice as well as various cats in order to emerge victorious. I’ve never played a puzzle game that’s as fast, frantic, and downright hilarious as this one.
Despite being a launch title (and before SegaNet was a thing) ChuChu Rocket even offered online play. Unfortunately it’s not as easy as it once was, and I haven’t had a chance to try this out. It’s still impressive and really goes to show how ahead of the curve Sega truly was. As with many other online titles for the platform you can still play online. It requires some technological knowhow, and I haven’t yet been able to test this one. ChuChu Rocket offering online play, despite launching in 1999, is truly one of the most impressive aspects of this title.
To be frank ChuChu Rocket doesn’t really take advantage of the Dreamcast hardware. It’s clearly something that could have been pulled off on the Nintendo 64 or Sony PlayStation with almost no loss of clarity. The mice are rendered in sprites, but the cats in polygons. In addition the backgrounds are fully pre-rendered. Just by screenshots the game isn’t very impressive. In motion everything is smooth, and at times there are a ton of moving parts. As I said it’s nothing that couldn’t have been pulled off on lesser hardware, but I can at least appreciate the art style. The soundtrack isn’t particularly catchy but I do like the zany Sega tunes.
ChuChu Rocket is an incredible game to play in 2022. I can’t even imagine how amazing it was when the Sega Dreamcast launched. In my opinion this should have been the next Tetris. It’s really that good. I understand why it didn’t set the sales charts on fire. It’s not a particularly pretty game, and at the launch of a new console that’s what you want. If you have a Sega Dreamcast then please seek this one out. Even if you aren’t willing to play it online you’ll still have one of the best puzzle titles in your collection by adding this one to it.
