If there’s one thing that has made the Game Boy and its successors immensely popular over the past decade, it is its universal appeal. There is something for everyone, no matter what kind of game you like. Of course, every game machine needs its “killer app,” that single game with wide appeal that will sell truckloads. In the original Game Boy generation, it was the ingenious “Tetris.” On Game Boy Color, it was “Pokemon.” But we’ve reached a new era in gaming, a new millennium (to borrow a worn-out cliché), and a once great game company has quit manufacturing hardware and is now making it’s classic library of games for other companies. As a result, one of the killer apps for Game Boy Advance is also Sega’s first game for a Nintendo console. That game is Chu Chu Rocket.

The basic premise is simple, as it is in nearly every gaming classic. Lead the mice to their rocket ship before the cats eat them. From that single sentence description, you can tell that the game has a decidedly Japanese flair, but it’s never over done. The mice are adorable without being sickeningly cute, and the cats are evil and devious without being frightening. The rocket ships are, well … as Freud would say, “Sometimes a rocket ship is just a rocket ship.”

The game’s initial stages have simple puzzles, mostly to teach you the layout of the game and how to use your direction tiles to manipulate the mice. These direction tiles, along with the basic tenet that mice and cats will always turn to their right when they encounter an obstacle, are the only tools you have to lead the mice to safety.

The game in the early stages is never overly difficult, though the challenge does progress as you move on to the Hard and Special levels (each “level” has 40 stages). Many stages have multiple solutions, with the more treacherous layouts accommodating only one skin-of-your-teeth escape. Just when you think you have the game beat, another level of stages opens up, and you start all over again.

Unlike Tetris’ memorable music, the themes in Chu Chu Rocket are not something you’ll find yourself humming afterwards. The sounds in the game are basic and appropriate, and suit the game without getting in the way. The game can be played with headphones, but if you’re lacking a pair and are playing in a crowded airport or bowling alley, you won’t feel like you’re missing out.

Sonic Team has done an outstanding job of taking a Dreamcast title and making the graphics and control scheme work on the GBA’s limited screen real estate. In fact, the control scheme is now so intuitive and adjustable; it’s become the perfect diversion, and is accessible to everyone. The graphics and control are simple and plain, however, and certainly don't tax the GBA in the least.

The game’s only true flaw, if one exists, is that the game is not as open-ended or random as Tetris is. Each stage has been designed carefully, and while there is a character designer, and a stage builder, Multi-player, etc. ... it doesn’t offer the game enough replay value to be worth it. On the other hand, the game’s puzzles are numerous, and do offer a great deal of value.

It’s unfair to keep comparing the game to Tetris when all they have in common is the puzzler genre. Chu Chu Rocket is a unique and wholly satisfying game in its own right, and a worthy first effort from Sega.