Commander Cherry’s Puzzled Journey is a platformer that uses Kinect to capture your photograph and uses that as a bridge for the titular character to cross. You have to stand in front of the camera and hold you controller in your hands at all times. The objective is rather simple but the positions you must make with your hands and legs are quite tricky. There are a bunch of orbs you must activate to advance to the next level. The orbs can only be activated if your body is close to them. So, make a certain position, activate the orbs, take the picture, and then control Commander Cherry as he jumps across your body collecting the orbs and onto the next area. It’s a lot of fun and rather addicting. If you think that’s all you couldn’t be more wrong. Upgrades like a double jump, eraser gun, and more are available to you as you progress through the levels. The poses also get harder. There are traps to avoid like eyeballs that harm you and much more. You will be a proper contortionist by the end of the game.
The Kinect controls are flawless in my opinion. I never encountered any issues unlike some of the comments I read on Twitter and Facebook. The camera only recognizes your body and nothing else. Making bridges is easy and the poses, while difficult, are doable. I realize some people will have difficulty because of varying degrees of physical fitness but the game’s trailer does a great job showing you how much you’ll need to stretch and move. No one should expect to just sit there and make a bridge. That would defeat the purpose of the game. Commander Cherry’s Puzzled Journey incorporates yoga into the mix so expect to do some stretching at least.
The controls for jumping and moving Commander Cherry around are also smooth. Aiming the eraser laser and double jumping is fluid and responsive. I never had any problems and wish other games featured characters this easy to control.
While the graphics are simple, I really enjoyed the art style because it’s very quirky and strange. The game as a whole is very strange and reminds me of a title I played some months ago called Roundabout. While Roundabout was a different genre and featured different mechanics, it was very cool and very weird. Commander Cherry’s Puzzled Journey is the second title that really appealed to me because of that. It’s very cool and very weird. For example, you can’t help but chuckle when you gain the double jump ability and Commander Cherry goes from being a simple commander to a yoga master with a long beard all of a sudden. The game is filled with great moments like that. It has a lot of personality.
My only real complaint would have to be the length of the game. You can complete it in the few hours as it only has ten levels. Even though the puzzles are varied and never feels boring, I didn’t want Commander Cherry’s Puzzled Journey to end. Its length will disappoint some gamers but I’m hoping for a sequel that’s longer and includes even more awesome features.
Overall, Commander Cherry’s Puzzled Journey is a great game. If you were worried about how it controls with Kinect then you shouldn’t be at all. It’s perfect for the Xbox One peripheral. I just wish it were longer as some gamers might not consider it good value because it’s only a few hours. However, I think you should buy it nonetheless. It’s priced reasonably and worth it. Commander Cherry’s Puzzled Journey a unique game that really showcases the amazing features of the Kinect. It’s different than titles like Slice Zombies or Fruit Ninja and incorporates the use of motion tracking in a great way. Give it a shot.
Asher is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 1110 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: wrote over 1,100 ICXM pieces on Xbox news, hardware reviews, and platform commentary before joining Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017.