Not so cool..
Not so sweet at all.[]
Chances are at some point in your life you've played Reversi (or Othello, as it's also known). A classic board game where players take turn placing colored discs in order to "trap" their opponent's pieces between their own -- stopping only when the board is full or the players can no longer make any more moves -- it's deceptively simple to learn, yet involves enough strategy that people hold world tournaments for it. Seriously. It's easy to find for free in various Flash versions, but the PSP is finally getting in on the action with the new PlayStation Mini, Sweet Reversi. Sweet Reversi is only sweet insofar as it replaces the typical colored discs in Reversi with desserts. I guess it's supposed to be charming, but I can't say that trapping opponents' pies or cakes makes the classic game any better. Much like the classic board game, Sweet Reversi is incredibly simple, only offering players the option to play against the computer or to play with another player on the same system (with each player using either the d-pad or face buttons as direction keys and the shoulder buttons being used to place pieces). No twists on the classic Reversi formula are offered, there's no option to play multiplayer with more than one PSP, and you can't even pick the skill of the artificial intelligence you play against. If you've played Reversi before then you've already played Sweet Reversi, plain and simple.
Closing Comments[]
It's not that Sweet Reversi is bad, it's just that it does so little to be distinct that it makes you wonder why they didn't just make it look like the classic board game. I'm all down for changing out the game pieces or coming up with unique themes, but I really would have loved to see the "Sweet" theme translated into a couple of new modes. Heck, I would have liked to have had options in the game, to, at the very least, be able to choose the skill of the A.I. I play against. If you're a hardcore Reversi fan, $1.99 and a few megabytes of your memory card are nothing for the fun you'll have with a portable version of this classic, but, for anyone else, I don't really see the appeal.