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Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure (Nintendo DS) Review
Review by 
8.32/10 from 9 user ratings
 
I have to admit, I have a thing for British culture. Much of my favorite media, from books to TV shows and more, comes from the UK. I especially have a thing for British comedy. It tends to maintain a certain feeling of class, no matter how strange the characters and scenarios involved are. And that is a huge part of the appeal of Henry Hatsworth, taking control of a classy monocle-wearing old man and kicking ass in a whole host of outright ridiculous situations.

So, as the story goes, Henry Hatsworth is an old British tea drinking dude (and #1 in the Pompous Adventurers Club) searching for the legendary golden hat. Also searching for the golden hat is his often incompetant and always underhanded rival Weasleby (aka #2). There are plenty of other friends and enemies along the way, equally silly in their own ways. I don't know about you guys, but I think that it is very refreshing to play as a hero who isn't a cliche young man with something to prove or young woman showing more skin than you would think would be comfortable. Anyway, at the beginning of the game he finds the hat, and it makes him 20 years younger (in other words, still pretty old) and opens up portals to the puzzle world, and a new quest begins.


Why do villains always make super large cakes?!

Henry Hatsworth is a 2D action / platformer. And... a 2D puzzle game. The platformer takes place on the top screen, and the puzzle game on the bottom screen. I'd call it a hybrid, but it's really not, at least, not in the sense of combining two different things to create something new. The platforming and the puzzling are two fairly distinct mechanics which the player jumps back and forth between when necessary, although they do affect each other in key ways (which will be discussed later). And to be honest, about 70-80% of your time will be spent in the platformer mode early on, making it feel almost like a standard 2D platformer with lite puzzle elements, although as the game progresses the puzzle mode demands much more of your time and attention.

I suppose you could compare the platforming mode to something like controlling Zero in the Mega Man X / Zero / ZX games, which is to say, Henry uses a melee attack (sword) first and foremost, but also has a projectile attack (gun) as well. I called it a standard 2D platformer earlier, but that was not totally accurate, as the platforming in Henry Hatsworth is standard in concept only. The actual execution is far above standard. The controls are spot on, the stages are well designed with plenty of alternate paths, both the platforming and the action are excellent, and the gameplay is full of variety, from romping through the jungle to jumping between floating air balloons in the sky to running through the mysterious puzzle world itself.

Less polished are some of the secret unlockable bonus stages, which often feel rather short and underwhelming. Some of them have some cool ideas, but they do not tend to be developed to the extent that the main stages are. I get the feeling that many of these stages were leftover on the cutting room floor of the main game and got pushed in as bonus stages. This doesn't really detract from the main game, but it does make the pursuit of the bonus stages a bit less enticing.


Never trust a nurse... that's what Chris D. taught me.

So, how exactly do the platformer and puzzle modes come together then? In a lot of ways, actually. Whenever you defeat an enemy in the game, he is turned into a puzzle piece and sent to the puzzle screen below. The puzzle screen slowly fills up from bottom to top, and if an enemy puzzle piece reaches the top of the puzzle screen, he comes back onto the platforming screen as an angry puzzle piece who will cause you trouble. You can prevent this from happening by going into puzzle mode (which can be easily accessed by pressing the X button at any time as long as you have filled up some of your puzzle meter) and lining up 3 or more colored pieces in a row to eliminate the pieces. Of course, you can eliminate the enemy puzzle pieces as well, and there are certain item pieces that, when removed, affect the platformer screen in various beneficial ways. Furthermore, whenever you successfully remove pieces it fills up your super meter, which can be used either for your projectile attacks or, if you have completely filled it, for tea time. What is tea time, you ask? Well, it is when Henry takes a little break and sips on some tea... before summoning a huge badass robot which can be used to go nuts on enemies until your super meter runs out. So as you can see, the platformer and puzzle modes are separate from a core gameplay perspective, but they still work off of each other in various ways.

I love the art style in Henry Hatsworth, with its crisp, clean 2D animated sprites and backgrounds, and the soundtrack is pretty rocking too, especially when you go into tea time and the music changes from typical video game fare to wild guitar rock. The voices however, with their Banjo-Kazooie-esque garbling, could probably have been a bit better. I also love the little details in Henry Hatsworth, from the huge British flag flying in the background during the tea time transformation to Hatsworth's key phrase “good show!” to the treasure chests at the end of stages that spew out tons of treasure while an upbeat march plays, Henry Hatsworth and its unique sensibility stands out in an era of me too design.


Tea time may be one of the coolest things to ever happen to video games.

I should come out and warn you though, Henry Hatsworth is a challenging game. Not necessarily at first, but once you get a few worlds into the game, it can get pretty difficult. And here is where things get controversial. There are certain people who will tell you that the later worlds in this game are "broken". That is one opinion, and I'm not going to invalidate the feelings of people who think that way. There is an undeniably sharp rise in the difficulty curve, and combined with longer kill rooms (rooms where you can't progress until you kill waves and waves of enemies) and some tricky enemy / pitfall combinations, Henry Hatsworth can certainly get very frustrating very fast. However, I honestly believe that many of the people who feel that the game is "broken" never really bothered learning to work the puzzle mechanic very well. Unlike the early, easier stages, where the puzzle screen can mostly be ignored until it starts to fill up, later stages require utilizing the puzzle mode to the fullest extent to upgrade weapons, gain health, and go into tea time as frequently as possible. I found myself having a much easier time of things, especially the kill rooms, when I got into my flow and was able to work the puzzle mode quickly and efficiently. Even after mastering the puzzle mode Henry Hatsworth is still pretty darn difficult and I died plenty of times, but I can't in good faith call the game broken just because it offers a legitimate challenge.

The DS isn't exactly a stranger to 2D platformers, but I truly believe that Henry Hatsworth is one of the best. In fact, I enjoyed it more than New Super Mario Bros. myself. It's fun, it's creative, it has heart, and going back and forth between the action / platforming and puzzle elements helps keep the game fresh the whole time. The length is pretty respectable too, with five worlds full of many stages each. I'm not sure how easy Henry Hatsworth is to find nowadays, but it's definitely worth looking for.

Good show!

Oh, and if you call Henry Hatsworth broken, you're banned. Sorry, it's on the list.



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 Excellent  9.4 / 10
06/22/11, 06:40   Edited:  06/22/11, 06:45
 
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I love this game, but it got too hard for me. Not fun hard, frustrating hard. Great review though, I too have a thing for British pop culture, I love Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who especially.

Posted by 
 on: 06/22/11, 07:59
It was SERIOUSLY fun, but I am in deathly_hallows' camp on this one. Am I banned?

Posted by 
 on: 06/22/11, 08:01
Jolly good show! This was a great action-platformer, and the puzzle element, while slightly disconnected, was fun and useful. I agree that it was tough as balls, but that made me like it even more! The way to play this game, is to take your time and try to find all the hidden items so that you can upgrade your character as much as possible along the way.

Thanks, this review makes me want to check out Monster Tale even more, now. It's Majesco published, so you should be checking it out too, right Zero?

Posted by 
 on: 06/22/11, 16:34
I'll be honest: I never did finish it.

Poppycock!

Posted by 
 on: 06/22/11, 16:43   Edited:  06/22/11, 16:44
I couldn't get past the 4th world, that's where the difficulty really seems to spike.

I'd love for this game to get a sequel with maybe an easy mode for people like me.

Posted by 
 on: 06/22/11, 16:53
deathly_hallows said:
I love this game, but it got too hard for me. Not fun hard, frustrating hard.

Oh that's because they were forced to rush the game to market and didn't playtest the second half as well as they should have. Not the developer's fault, certainly. Shame, though, because up to then it was a BRILLIANT 9.4 or higher quality game.

I really liked HH until the part when the difficulty spike caused the core mechanic to disintegrate and, overall, fragment the experience. I would never say it was BROKEN, mind you, but it was certainly annihilated, battered, burst, busted, busted up, cracked, crashed, crushed, damaged, demolished, divided, eradicated, finished off, fractured, made hash of, made mincemeat of, parted, pulled to pieces, rended, separated, severed, shattered, shivered, smashed, snapped, splintered, split, torn, torpedoed, totaled, and trashed.

Posted by 
 on: 06/22/11, 17:28
One of the better DS games, I'd say. Picked it up on a whim and enjoyed it quite a bit! I actually had the most trouble with the nurse boss, rather than the final one, but the rest of the game was mostly manageable enough.

I do think the stage design was slightly lacking compared to what Nintendo (or Capcom) is capable of for this sort of title. And there got to be way too many "kill rooms" by the last few stages. But the characters and bosses were very charming and memorable, and the gameplay was otherwise quite solid.

Posted by 
 on: 06/22/11, 17:31
@-JKR- I really don't feel like the difficulty spiked that much though. Some of the later kill rooms reminded me of like... every area in Ninja Gaiden (HD), which is to say tough and a bit overlong but not unmanageable. Again though, I really think it takes learning the intricacies of the puzzle mode and progressing in skill there as much (or more) as the platformer mode which, from hearing second hand accounts, I get the feeling that few people did.

Actually, when I got super good at the puzzle mode I could pretty much chain tea time into tea time again during the kill rooms and they became much, much easier.

It's a tough game but it's not like... Super Ghouls and Ghosts tough.

Posted by 
 on: 06/22/11, 20:10   Edited:  06/22/11, 20:12
I never got the complaints about it being a hard game. I don't recall any area being frustratingly hard. There might have been a few challenges here and there but had I not read about it being so difficulty, I never would have given it a second thought at it being that tough of game.

Posted by 
 on: 06/22/11, 20:16
@Zero

I really think my problem wasn't the difficulty per say, but the fact that they advertised that difficulty as NOT "hard mode." It seems to me that you should be able to complete a game that, let's be honest, was made as a bridge-type for casuals AND core gamers on normal mode without having to learn to chain tea time into tea time just to get by. You shouldn't have to be a master to do the lowest difficulty setting, in my opinion. You absolutely should have to master it to beat hard mode or super hard mode, such as Pokemon Puzzle League.

When you couple that with the fact that we know that the developer was rushed and missed important play testing, I have to believe they didn't MEAN for it to be like that. Otherwise they wouldn't have made a hard mode to challenge the non-casual gamers.

Posted by 
 on: 06/23/11, 00:51
That's fair enough. Personally though I prefer games where the normal mode is hard to games where the hard mode is not hard (IE almost every game nowadays.) But I get where you're coming from.

Posted by 
 on: 06/23/11, 02:18
This game sounds great! Zero, for you to claim you enjoyed this game even more than New Super Mario Bros. really piques my interest. I have this game on my wishlist, for sure. The whole 'tea time' concept sounds awesome.

Posted by 
 on: 06/23/11, 02:56
Damnit. I was really pissed at this game for being too hard for me to finish so I sold it... now I want to play it again because this review reminded me of how much I love it (even though I hate it).

Posted by 
 on: 06/26/11, 22:19
I've known about this game for awhile, but had no idea it was an action/platformer. That makes it sound more interesting to me.

Posted by 
 on: 06/26/11, 23:40
Three months later...

I owned this game when it first came out and could not for the life of me get past 5-1. Then I lost the game along with several others and my DSi, so I never got to try again. I picked up the game again this week for cheap ($6 or so) and I am loving it more than I remembered. The charm and humor are excellent, the platforming action is great, and it's not nearly as difficult as I remembered. I'm now up to 5-5, and there hasn't been anything that seems game-breakingly tough. But I also feel like I'm better at the puzzle mode than I was before, so maybe that's why. Of course, I haven't reached the final boss yet so maybe that'll do me in.

That said, the game could do with a LOT less kill rooms, and shorter kill rooms, and less brutal kill rooms. Not because they're impeding my progress (though they did when I played it the first time), but just because they aren't very fun. For such a well-designed game with great mechanics, design and presentation, the kill rooms just stick out to me as a bad idea.

Overall, I'm really loving the game. But I'd love it more if they toned down the kill rooms.

Posted by 
 on: 09/14/11, 16:38   Edited:  09/14/11, 16:38
I finished the game yesterday. The final boss was hard, but not as hard as I expected based on things I've heard. I actually defeated him on my very last life, meaning I never got a game over. Hard to say that the game is too hard if I never game over'd.

Overall, I really love this game, and I fully endorse the thread title: totally not broken.

Okay guys, continue ignoring this thread.

Posted by 
 on: 09/16/11, 16:55
I picked up Henry Hatsworth last night. I mainly got it for my wife because she really likes puzzle games but I will try my hand at it as well. I've heard a lot of praise for this game on this site/podcast (obviously Zero loves it) and a few others, as well as Nintendo Power.

I was at GameStop to let my youngest daughter get a game and while browsing came across HH in the used section for just $4.99 including case and instructions so I had to grab it.

Posted by 
 on: 09/21/11, 21:56   Edited:  09/21/11, 21:59
@Robknoxious1 You got it for your wife because she loves puzzle games?! You should have read my review first! The puzzle elements are minimal, this is basically a platformer first and foremost.

Posted by 
 on: 09/21/11, 23:21
@ZeroIt all works out. While she has mainly focused on puzzle games on her DS she also likes platformers. She loved NSMB for DS and Wii, DKCR, Epic Yarn ect. After reading the comments my only concern would be the difficulty in later levels. It's still no problem because - really - she doesn't care too terribly much if she beats a game or not. If it gets too frustrating she'll either restart or move on. I would've read the review first but didn't really expect to get a game for my wife or I this trip.

Really how can you go wrong for five bucks? (less the member discount). Even if she doesn't care for it there's three other gamers in the house

Posted by 
 on: 09/21/11, 23:39   Edited:  09/21/11, 23:44
I loved this game so much. just picked up monster tale!!!!! it's gonna be gaming galore this winter!!!

Posted by 
 on: 09/22/11, 08:39
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