A new GBA game that does what it says on the tin. Nintendo seem to have snuck this one out. It doesn’t seem to be widely available and I wouldn’t have known it existed if it hadn’t been for a “Happy Birthday Mario” promo card that fell out of MCV the other week.

But it’s a version of Puzzle League that I can play on my Micro, so how I could refuse?

(For anyone in the dark, Puzzle League – also known as Tetris Attack and Panel de Pon, or something – is a Tetris-a-like that involves swapping blocks to form lines of three or more as they rise towards the ceiling. It’s probably my favourite of these types of puzzle game.)

It must be said, it reeks of a “will this do?” mentality. The interface is just a dodgy black font on a white background and while it does save high scores it only saves one for each game mode and not the variations in those modes. So Marathon has one high score, no matter which level and speed you started on. Which is fair enough, I guess, but not great. It does pack in a sleep mode, mind, which is nice.

The real “what the hell?” moment comes at the end of Marathon games. It plays the credits at the end. In full. And they’re unskippable. I think it’s only if you’ve got a new high score, but still, what were they thinking?

So, yes, if you want Puzzle League (or Dr Mario, I suppose, but I’ve not tried that yet) to play on your Micro, then this is what you need. But, really, compared to lavish attention that was paid to the old GBC Pokemon Puzzle League title this is just very lazy.