Unlike Igor for the Wii and PC, the DS game doesn’t follow the movie’s plot, but instead offers a new storyline, and the artwork and drawings have been recreated specifically for this version.
As the story goes, Eva – a monster Igor has created and cares for quite a bit – decides to run off with Dr. Schadenfreude, an evil scientist who assures her that Igor doesn’t want her to be happy and is actually the bad guy. Convinced, Eva accepts his proposal and goes with him. So you play as the little hunchback monster Igor, a scientist’s assistant who likes playing god by making his own monsters, and who is on a personal quest to get Eva back by battling the evil Schadenfreude himself in the in ultimate monster fighting tournament.
Easier said than done though, let me tell you! The basics of the game are fairly simple, but there is so much to do that you can easily spend hours on mindless little tasks simply to obtain items to create parts. But first things first.
Igor is an adventure/puzzle game, in some ways similar to Puzzle Quest. You move around the world map of Malaria by tapping the place you want to go. If there is a battle on a given place, you will automatically enter it. Every time you enter a fight, the game switches to a Super Puzzle Fighter type of battle, with a few differences. Pieces of different colors come down, so your goal is to group them together and break them when the flashing gems of respective color appear. Place the flashing gems on your colored blocks to break them. Every time you break a block of a particular color, it will fill up the attack meter corresponding to that color. To attack, tap the meter. The fuller the move meters are, the more powerful your attack will be. So the meters don’t have to be full to perform an attack, you will just do less damage.
There is also another meter for a special attack. When it’s full, you tap it and must tap the move meters in the order indicated on the top screen to do a critical hit.
On the top screen you can switch between a view of your opponent’s puzzle or a view of the actual monsters fighting each other. They do look somewhat clumsy and blocky, but you won’t be paying much attention to what’s going on up there as much as what goes on in your puzzle field.
Combat does seem a little clunky when you are using the D-pad and A button to place, rotate and drop the pieces, then all of a sudden must tap the attacks on the touch screen.
Much like in an RPG, your monster can become stronger, but not exactly by gaining experience and leveling up. Instead, you must create and improve the different parts of your monster’s body. The Recycling Plant will provide you with the first few parts (as well as repair any parts), while in the Laboratory you can create new parts. But first you need recipes and the right materials to make them, which means lots and lots of walking all over looking for random fights. It wouldn’t be so time-consuming if each part didn’t need 12 or 16 of a given item, so it does take a while to turn your monster into a pretty powerful creature.
The world map is fairly big, and there are plenty of tournaments pertaining to the 
main storyline, power-ups to find, random battles, boss battles as well as optional side-quests and jobs. It does get a bit repetitive, but if you want to take on the bosses, there’s no way around it. It definitely is a game for puzzle enthusiasts who won’t grow tired of the battles.
Overall, Igor: The Game is a “cute” yet dark game with plenty to do, that will certainly please Super Puzzle Fighter and Puzzle Quest fans. While there were some issues with the tapping on the world map being a little off (even after calibrating the touch screen several times), I’ve enjoyed my adventure and battles quite a bit.
Special thanks to Jay Fitzloff and SouthPeak Games for providing a copy of this title.