Back to Stone Critic Reviews

A certain type of person will fall in love with this game; others will hate it completely.

There is a good amount of material to be seen within this cartridge. Some of it is above average (art style, technical achievement, story), and others are disappointing (sound, mechanics, block-on-grid puzzles). The one truly abysmal flaw is the lack of an internal battery to save the game, which is unacceptable for today's standards, even more so in a portable system.

Back to Stone is an honest try at a puzzle/actioner hybrid, but its technical limitations mire it in the past. Sketchy graphics, frustrating controls and an archaic password save system kept the game from being immersive enough. Still, the story and gameplay were solid, and there is definitely room for a sequel.

Back to Stone is a bland, sloppy dungeon crawl in which you'll spend the majority of time pushing stone blocks around.

The idea of changing your foes into blocks and using them to solve puzzles is an interesting, if not unoriginal idea. The painfully simple puzzles, hindered platforming aspects, cruddy combat mechanics, pathetic presentation, and a truly loathsome saving system all combine to make this one of the last great disappointments on the GBA.