

The game doesn’t have much a story so it isn’t that big of a deal should you choose to examine your list beforehand, but I got a slight chuckle since I played through Adventure mode looking at the list first. There was even a few humorous achievements towards the end that I won’t spoil for you. Others have you completing a puzzle in different ways, like one for going without moving on a rail level, or staying on a single lily pad when there are two available. Towards the end I was challenged by the low time limits some of these levels were set at.Īside from the challenging achievements, the other ones on the list offered consistent encouragement along the way. To fully level up all your abilities and earn an achievement, you’ll need 180/189 available tokens, which certainly isn’t a push over.

This allows you to “build” your abilities just a bit, which leads to more Spirit Tokens. You can spend these tokens to increase four different abilities like a faster shot or increased powerup availability. Each level has a possible three tokens to earn: one for completing it, one for obtaining the goal score, and one for completing the goal time. One of those challenges is collecting Spirit Tokens. While most people will be able to breeze through the game’s Adventure Mode, mastering some achievements will be met with a fair amount of challenge. This didn’t completely compromise the game’s difficulty though. Replacing the limited lives of the first in favor of unlimited tries for the sequel certainly helped. Of course achievements should certainly have a degree of difficulty to it but the first game was just a bit too brutal, something that even those who were talented enough to complete it would agree with. The first Zuma suffered from overly difficult achievements. It still has me interested in fact, as I’m still battling the Iron Frog mode and awaiting some more weekly challenges to (hopefully) complete this game. I’ve already played Zuma plenty on the PC, but this well rounded achievement list kept me interested throughout. The achievements really solidified this port for me though. There’s a weekly challenge to participate in as well, yet another way to compete and compare. This was a small reward when I’m consistently losing out to a fellow reviewer on my friends list over and over again.

In one particular level I was able to crack the Top 25 globally.

There is a leaderboard for every level and game mode which is great when comparing with friends and global opponents. That doesn’t just mean achievements though. What then will attract those who’ve played the game so much already? What will attract newcomers as well? Xbox LIVE support is always a good starting point with these type of ports.
