iSlash is a great game with an unfortunate name; prefixing another word with ‘i’ is becoming tired and for many of you might already be cliché. However, the game itself is actually much more fun than the title might imply; we’ve had Veggie Samurai and we were ready to throw this one into the Fruit Ninja knock-off pile along with the vegetable dicing title from QuantumSquid Interactive. Happily, iSlash is more akin to Qix than anything involving slicing up various produce.

Qix, if you’re unfamiliar with the arcade classic, has you drawing boxes on the field in order to capture as much of the playing field as possible. In iSlash, conversely, you’ll be slashing away the playing field in order to keep the bouncing ninja stars trapped. Hack away until you have a sufficiently small area and you’ve won.

Make contact with a ninja star and you’ll have to restart the level, plus you can’t simply isolate each star in its own cage; only slashes that remove a part of the area that a star is not in will count. This keeps the game fairly challenging, but thankfully that’s not all. Additional challenge comes later on, with metal edged shapes whose metal can’t be slashed through, and yet further stages introduce dynamite power ups that when tapped remove a star from the game. With new gameplay elements being introduced every ten puzzles it keep the game fresh and exciting.

And, as you can tell from the video above, iSlash has got style to go with that gameplay substance; detailed backgrounds and rich, textured shapes lend a feeling of class to the whole affair; similarly, the menu screens convey an oriental sophistication that doesn’t feel overly trite or too forward. Indeed, the game tracks your every slice and draws a diagram of the puzzle as you sliced it when you complete the level.

iSlash is a happy surprise; the slashing motion isn’t as fluid as Fruit Ninja as you’re restricted to a straight line, but overall we think Duello Games are onto a winner; Qix meets Starball. Our only complaint is that there isn’t any online scoring features/achievements; but other than that we recommend that you buy this super little game.

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