Who is Hugo I hear you ask. Well, I thought the same when I received this game. Apparently Hugo and his family are huge in Scandinavia where they can be found in all forms of merchandising, from toys and games to DVD and interactive television. There have been Hugo games for the Game Boy Color, but this is his first appearance on the GBA.

Scylla the Wicked Witch has captured Hugo in a mirror by using her evil powers. Hugo's children attempt to set him free by recovering the various broken pieces, which have been scattered around the farthest depths of the Tricky Troll Forest. Each level has a unique platform layout, based in a forest with Viking themes. The objective of each level is to clear the enemies using your freeze gun, which encases them in blocks of ice. Once frozen, you then need to drop the block or jump on it so that it smashes and releases various goodies. These goodies include running shoes to go faster, a faster freeze gun, bombs to destroy all enemies and hearts to give you more lives. Leave the block for too long without smashing it and the enemy defrosts and comes back to life.

Initial levels are fairly basic and you will complete them with ease. As you progress though, things get trickier. The levels actually require more negotiation to get through them. Tree trunks prevent you going left or right at times, meaning you have to go up and over. Also the enemies start to get nastier and instead of just having to avoid contact with them, you also have to dodge spears and dynamite! Some also have shields that block the ice gun blasts; to beat these ones you have to shoot them in the back. The other change that occurs as you progress is the introduction of monster generators. With these if you kill an enemy another will join the action from the generator and to prevent more enemies appearing you need to get to the generator and use your freeze gun to seal its entrance. As you progress through the levels you start to encounter some puzzle elements. These involve a bit more thinking and involve tasks like stacking the ice cubes to create stairways. On some levels these are required to get to the monster generator. You also start to encounter really tricky layouts where there is only one way through, once you have worked it out. The final thing to compete against on each level is the timer. If it runs out a nasty slimy creature appears and comes after you. Once you have completed a level you then come face-to-face with the level boss. Beat him and you'll get a piece of the mirror, plus access to the next level.

There are three levels of difficulty to choose from (easy, normal or hard) and these vary the amount of time available and also how often keys are available on levels. You need to collect keys to enable the game to be saved. On the hard level a key only appears every 5 levels or so, which certainly keeps you concentrating! Game saving is to the cartridge and doesn't require a password. There are six slots available to save games to, which is really good when sharing the game around friends or family. There is also a high score table which captures the 5 highest scores.

There is no multiplayer option, so this limits the replay element of the game, although it's not going to be a 5-minute job to complete the game. The gameplay is really slick and simple with A to jump, and B to shoot your freeze gun. The sound is also really good, especially on some later levels where sounds are used to indicate something nasty is coming, but not yet visible.

Hugo: The Evil Mirror is an excellent and to some extent unique platformer that will appeal to all ages. The need to freeze and break enemies, rather than just straight shooting of them adds an extra dimension to the game. The challenges that you meet later on also means some brainpower is required to negotiate the levels. The aim of the game is simple, but due to the variety of levels it becomes very addictive and there are over 60 levels in total so it's also an enduring game that will take a while to finish.

Reviewed by AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).