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The googly-eyed Balls were suffering from a bad case of boredom. Life for them went like this: Get up, roll a bit, bounce, roll a bit more. Roll (just for a change). Bounce a bit. Go to bed. Get up, roll a bit... and so on.

One day, some kindly Aliens decided to give two of the Balls a stab at excitement - a new concept in Ballsville. They snatched away two young mini-Balls named Puffy (a boy-Ball) and Puffyn (a girl-Ball) to a land of mazes, magic and monsters. Being a bit thick however, our pair of spheroid chums felt a bit homesick and decided to escape.

The Aliens understandably felt snubbed and set about making the bouncing buddies' task as tough as possible. This is where you come in: because our couple of cuties are two bricks short of a hod, they need your guidance if they're going to escape.

Your first choice is deciding which character should tackle a level. Puffy (being of the male inclination) is more robust and packs a powerful shot, but is a tad slow; Puffyn (being a girly-blob) is fleet of foot but feeble of firepower - however, she hangs onto bonus objects longer.

Having chosen your sex, you bounce merrily from one level to the next by collecting Pad Goms. These strangely-named objects are little warping pastilles, usually found in the most awkward places - under no circumstances should you confuse them with Magic Goms, which bestow such delights as extra firepower, health and transvestitism (look it up!). At all costs avoid the monsters, since their touch drains precious health points, only restored when our cutesome twosome gobble some grub.

No alien race worth its salt would leave it at that, though: every one of the twenty levels is packed with surprises, and even the level layouts are randomly reversed! You can play the game straight through simply by heading for the Pad Gom every time but you don't have to. If you want to squeeze the last drop of enjoyment out of Puffy's Saga, a little exploration, some monster-bashing and a lot of puzzling is required.

This makes Puffy's Saga sound like an excellent game, which it isn't. It's an above-average Gauntlet variant marred by a few basic faults, which include poor collision-detection and simple four-way movement. The multi-load won't do cassette owners any favours either: the restart sequences, high score tables and all the levels are loaded separately. For all its cuteness, Puffy's Saga doesn't have the staying power to merit much attention.

1. Wide variety of collectables and weapons.
2. Choice of male and female characters.
3. Cute graphics and animation; each level has its own atmosphere.
4. Save/load game option.
5. Each monster requires unique tactics to defeat.
6. Plenty of hidden traps and secret passageways.
7. The cutesy theme is continued through to good spot sound fx.

1. Generally frustrating because of four-way control method.
2. Unfriendly collision detection leaves you feeling somewhat cheated when you're beaten.
3. Only twenty levels, all of which lack variety.
4. Repetitive gameplay brings on the yawns.