Brave: A Shaman's Challenge is DS tie-in to Brave: A Warrior's Tale, which takes the Native American theme and applies it to a color-matching, falling-piece action puzzler. I wasn't privy to the storyline, as this was another game that developer's happily put into my hands, confident that I'd pick up on the simple and fulfilling game mechanic.
The mechanic works like this: pieces fall into play consisting of two tiles - each colored in one of five colors. Each color represents one of the key elements; earth, fire, water, air, and "spirit" are represented by stone (grey), flame (orange), water (blue), lightning (yellow), and "sun" (a darker orange). Connecting up a pattern of 4 symbols in a particular color results in a "pop" disappearance, with patterns greater than 4 symbols getting bigger scores and more aggressive opponent attacks.
Opponent attacks drop symbols into your opponent's field of play, and the drops may be any of the standard symbols, as well as a steel brick that cannot be matched and must be dropped out the bottom of the screen, or a "morphing" symbols that takes the shape of any in the standard set of 5, but rotates every so often in a random spin. The bigger the hit, the more blocks are dropped onto your opponent, and the greater the chance that morphing blocks of steel bricks will be added. The winner is determined by last-man-standing mechanism, and if you defeat your opponent, you either advance the storyline or get to laugh at your friend, whom you just worked over. Very simple, very deadly, very fun.
I particularly like the revolving symbol mechanic. I think it added a lot of potential and probable planning, and was a particularly inspired piece of development. I can't say for sure how it plays out with skilled players, as I didn't have that much time to spend with Brave: A Shaman's Challenge. I imagine, though, that this simple action puzzler supports a lot of playtime, and a lot of battles between people who enjoy challenges of this nature.
I'm a volleyball playing nomad who's been blowing up aliens, scoring touchdowns/goals, dogfighting, slaying dragons, mowing down hordes of enemy tanks, headshotting, and saving damsels in distress since my dad brought home the very first Atari system. My game-tastes are very diverse, as I enjoy street racers, sports games (especially "hyper" sports games like, say, NFL Street), shooters, RPGs, a good MMO here and there, and pretty much anything else that doesn't involve a Pokemon!
