It was always on my radar, but I bought this while it was 30% off - which it might still be - and given I can't see a thread I felt like it needed a little fanfare.
The video above explains it all far better than I could in words, but in short you go into levels where you zip about as this little UFO guy with a crane arm that you use to shift various things about. Each level has a basic goal of getting the target objects into the target area, but doing it in the required time, and meeting a couple of extra goals earns you more cash and medals. Medals are one-time rewards that unlock more levels, whereas you can repeat levels for cash, which you can then use to buy daft little outfits that grant small perks.
That's the basics, but there's some nice little side things too, like a challenge to stack a never-ending series of random objects as high as you can. Once you've finished the main story (not too challenging or too long), a nice little array of extra things also get unlocked too.
It is a very simple central idea, expanded upon masterfully. Crucially it's also absolutely stuffed with bags of charm, cheeky background details, clever incidental tweaks of its main theme, and so on. HAL Laboratory is on total fire here, up there with the likes of Rhythm Tengoku and WarioWare in terms of smiles-per-minute. Thoroughly recommended.
The video above explains it all far better than I could in words, but in short you go into levels where you zip about as this little UFO guy with a crane arm that you use to shift various things about. Each level has a basic goal of getting the target objects into the target area, but doing it in the required time, and meeting a couple of extra goals earns you more cash and medals. Medals are one-time rewards that unlock more levels, whereas you can repeat levels for cash, which you can then use to buy daft little outfits that grant small perks.
That's the basics, but there's some nice little side things too, like a challenge to stack a never-ending series of random objects as high as you can. Once you've finished the main story (not too challenging or too long), a nice little array of extra things also get unlocked too.
It is a very simple central idea, expanded upon masterfully. Crucially it's also absolutely stuffed with bags of charm, cheeky background details, clever incidental tweaks of its main theme, and so on. HAL Laboratory is on total fire here, up there with the likes of Rhythm Tengoku and WarioWare in terms of smiles-per-minute. Thoroughly recommended.
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