Puyo Puyo CD

~ PUYO PUYO CD ~

Compile / NEC Avenue

Super CD-ROM

1994

For those unacquainted with the legendary sport, Puyo Puyo is a pastime that will immediately bring to mind memories of Tetris, although it actually fits in best with the ilk of Columns. Maneuver four blobs of the same color into a string of solid contact with one another (no diagonals) and they'll vanish from your well and cause a boatload of crap (in the form of colorless blobs) to descend upon your enemy’s stack. Of course, blobs that had been resting upon those you made disappear will fall into the newly unoccupied slots, allowing for additional slime obliteration (and causing even more trash to bombard your hapless opponent’s pile). The transparent nuisances can be annihilated only if they come in contact with a vanishing thread of their colorful counterparts.

The "eliminating adjacent blobs" gameplay is fine, but the endearing characters, with their pre-match antics and hilarious in-game shouts and howls, are truly what sets Puyo apart from most well-type puzzlers.

Valiant (if often teary-eyed) Arle is a lovable little heroine, while her adversaries (among whom is the famously volatile Skeleton-T) are spirited miscreants. Humorous voice acting supplies interjections of happiness and despondency, while irresistibly catchy tracks add to the charming atmosphere (but be prepared for an awesome change of pace during the final battle, which takes place to the tune of a riff-fest more than just a little reminiscent of M.U.S.H.A.'s metal).

Don't be fooled by all the cute stuff, though--Puyo Puyo CD is hard. Your computer-controlled opponents all have their own individual playing styles; they don't merely become quicker and smarter as you advance through their ranks. This is very cool, but it also makes them extremely tough to play against. In fact, during later matches, I frequently find myself with little recourse but to hope I hit upon a large unplanned combo. Surviving the thirteen-fiend gauntlet can actually take hours. Of course, if you need a break from the one-player trial, there’s always the highly enjoyable two-player competitive mode.

Puyo Puyo CD certainly isn’t as ingenious a creation as Tetris is, but it’s far more lovable and just as addicting. The fact that it can keep players hooked throughout its lengthy and difficult one-player gauntlet is a testament to its brilliance. And once you do finally complete the adventure, you’ll probably sit back with a smile on your face and think to yourself, “Two-player mode from now on. I’m never going through that again.”

But you will.

Jim Power

~ JIM POWER ~

Loriciel / Micro World

Super CD-ROM

1992

Much-maligned Jim Power has more going for it than most reviews of it would lead you to believe. To be sure, it's an imperfect title, with its most significant flaw being horrid jumping controls. Expect to experience plenty of mid-air misadventures when you first start playing the game. But you can develop a feel for the initially awkward leaping mechanism, and once you have that feel, you can start to notice and appreciate all the good stuff.

The adventure is a bit too short at five stages, but each level can take a while (not an irritatingly long while, mind you), and variety is definitely present, as three of the stages are run-and-gun fare while the other two play like side-view shoot 'em ups. The former aren't nearly as intense as a typical Contra board, but they do make you deal with plenty of tricky platforming sections, and you've always gotta be on your guard, as swift, bizarre creatures roam the grounds.

The shooter boards toss more strange foes your way. These guys are typically too strong to face head on, so mindless blasting won't cut it; you've gotta come up with plans to get by.

The music is very good throughout, and the graphics are great, particularly the shooter-stage backgrounds and the boss sprites. Speaking of the gargantuan bosses, they're pretty awesome looking and fun to fight, even though they're basically jokes.

The jokes don't end there; the game displays a fine sense of humor with amusing opening and closing bits. And really, as long as you don't give up on it early, the adventure itself should give you plenty to smile about.

Bazaaru de Gozaaru no Game de Gozaaru

~ BAZAARU DE GOZAARU ~

NEC Home Electronics / GAME FREAK

Super CD-ROM

1996

I wanted to acquire Bazaaru de Gozaaru in part because I thought it'd be a nice collection piece, as it seems pretty darn rare, and in part because I'd long been curious about it, often wondering to myself, "What the hell is that monkey game all about?" I went in thinking that any enjoyment I'd get out of it would be gravy. Much to my surprise, I found myself addicted to it almost at once and blazed right through its eighty levels, having a great time the whole way through.

It looks like a platformer from afar, but it's really a trial-and-error-style puzzle game. In each stage, you've got to guide Bazaaru from the starting point to the goal while dealing with springs, pitfalls, and FIERCE ENEMIES... like little white puppy dogs.

Every level has a number of "action points"; your job is to select moves for Bazaaru to carry out at said points. He can jump or roll or spin... or dance or doze or do the moonwalk.

Once you've settled on your moves, you can sit back and watch the zaniness unfold, as the crazy monkey tiptoes past sleeping mutts, gobbles up bananas to extend the time he's allotted to finish his mission, and snags moneybags that are scattered about the various environs (which include a desert, an amusement park, and the moon).

There are one hundred moneybags to grab, and the fact that some of them are in out-of-the-way, tough-to-reach places adds a "sidequest" element to the proceedings. You may use the cash you collect to buy furniture for Bazaaru's house, which starts off as little more than an empty box. You can eventually have it decked out with curtains, a bed, a computer, and other such luxuriances, much to the monkey's delight.

The game isn't very challenging, which is fine with me. I enjoy tough puzzle games like Tricky Kick once in a while, but there are times when I prefer an easier ride, and Bazaaru fits the bill for those instances. Its music is decent, and its graphics are simple but nice looking. Yellowish-orange hues dominate the drawings; so, uh, be prepared for that.

This is the sort of game that definitely won't appeal to everyone, but the folks to whom it does appeal will have an awful lot of fun with it. There are those who'll have a blast solving the puzzles and those who'll get a kick out of the monkey's goofy antics. And then there's my well-off cousin Zigfriedoslov, who sure does love collecting those moneybags.

Gomola Speed

~ GOMOLA SPEED ~

UPL

HuCard

1990

You wouldn't believe how many times I've seen people passing along the good word on this game, how many times I myself was told of its "must own" and "unknown gem" status. And I'm talking about people who know their stuff, reliable guys who had given me solid recommendations in the past and whose game evaluations I won't hesitate to trust in the future; these are not some know-nothing knaves on a backwater web site. Yet, I did not end up merely disliking Gomola Speed--I downright hated it.

It starts off innocuously enough. You begin each round as a, uh, worm head, and you have to zip around Gauntlet-esque mini-maze-type boards to capture your roving body segments.

Your main objective once you start to resemble a full-length creepy crawler rather than a vagabond insect head is to collect the "food" that's just sort of rolling around. You accomplish this by wrapping your creature's newly formed body around the treat--and this is where things go straight to hell for me. And maybe it really is just me, but I find this wrap-around "technique" to be one of the most cumbersome and aggravating play mechanisms I've ever come across. Causing further aggravation are the swift enemies who hound your miserable worm and slice off body segments you retrieved just seconds earlier. Sure, you can destroy these fiends, but first you need to "stun" them with well-placed (read: luckily placed) bombs a la Bomberman (another play mechanism I could live without), and then you have to pull off the constriction business to do them in once and for--well, actually, they won't really be gone for good. They'll just reappear in faster, angrier forms. And, incidentally, some of them can devour your bombs before the explosives detonate. Excellent.

So it really doesn't matter that the Gauntlet similarities made me feel right at home in the Gomola Speed world, or that many of the game's stages contain secret warps and breakable walls that should make them a lot of fun to explore, or that the placement of enemies in relation to board construction is truly ingenious at times. These things don't matter to me because I absolutely hate the principal gameplay elements. At least there are boss fights that are somewhat entertaining (being that for a number of them you gain the ability to shoot fireballs and thus finally employ a comfortable method of waging combat).

As I mentioned earlier, many trustworthy critics have praised this game. The mechanics don't sit well with me at all, but it really might just be me. It probably is. But if it's you too, you're gonna end up with a game you despise here. I'd rather play QBasic Nibbles than slog through this damn thing again.

Fighting Run

~ FIGHTING RUN ~

Nichibutsu

HuCard

1991

There have been times when a developer's best efforts didn't work out but warranted commendation nonetheless, when brave designers came up with a fresh idea and gave their concept a shot. And there have been times when it seemed obvious from the get-go that a developer had impending disaster on their hands and should've discarded their clearly flawed blueprint at once. Fighting Run never could've worked, as its premise (two robots barrel down a corridor while thrashing one another) is too fucking stupid; it really makes you wonder what the hell Nichibutsu were thinking when they came up with it (though with Nichibutsu nothing should really come as a surprise...). Why in the world must the warriors participating in a given match charge through a speed tunnel while battling? When my brother Duomitri and I have a dispute to settle, we square off like men; we don't go frolicking down the street side by side.

Well, in the Fighting Run universe, there are quite a few goofballs who enjoy this ridiculous brand of "competition," enough to fill the ranks of numerous circuits that you can advance through. As you proceed, you earn power points to improve your robot's speed, strength, and defense as well as a few weapons that, for the most part, aren't all that useful (though there's a cool chain-thing that enables you to harpoon an opponent stationed behind you and hurl him into perfect position for a beating).

How well does it play? Well... how well do you think it plays? Is there any strategy involved? Oh, sure. I like the strategy of sitting in a corner while my dumb computer-controlled foe stumbles suicidally into crap that's littered about the track.

Oh, there's "variety" too, as the corridor designs go from one type of ugly to another. There are some "funny" intermission scenes as well.

Zoom through the entire goofy gauntlet and you'll be treated to jovial end-game celebration screens. I was certainly happy when I reached said screens--happy to have gotten it all over with. But, funnily enough, I didn't mind experiencing Fighting Run. It is indeed a unique form of, uh, "robo-gladiation." And it does feel good to deal the final blow to an opponent and watch the ensuing explosion. However, the game certainly isn't novel enough (or nearly enjoyable enough) to make its many flaws forgivable. Anyone who does go ahead and purchase it will be making a "What the hell are you thinking?" sort of move, just like Nichibutsu were when they went ahead and designed the damn thing.

Stratego

~ STRATEGO ~

Victor Musical Industries / Accolade / JPI

HuCard

1992

A lot of people, me included, look back on the Stratego board game quite fondly. For many of us, it served as a cool introduction to "strategic" gaming. But an introductory role and nothing more seemed, in my mind at least, to be what it's best suited for. After all, it's fairly rudimentary as far as thinking man's material goes, bearing greater resemblance to Memory than to Risk. Way back when, it was cool to command an army consisting of several different types of soldiers, but nostalgia and the neatness of premise I perceived in my younger days were not going to make the PCE game work for me now. And when I powered it up and got a glimpse of its simplistic graphics, I was about ready to write the title off.

But this version of Stratego managed to rekindle my interest in the concept. There's nothing impressive about its visuals, but what's cool in regards to them is that you can choose from a variety of very different boards and characters. Take fairy-tale beasts and send them up into outer space, or position modern armed forces atop a medieval battlefield. Or just stick with the tried-and-true dual-lake Stratego board with the customary game pieces you grew up with.

You get a handful of tunes to select from as well, and most of them are actually very good. And while there's no two-player mode (it simply could not work here considering the importance of secrecy in placing units), you can get a multi-round campaign going where the rules are changed up as you advance.

Surprisingly, I found that Stratego in its essence actually still stands tall as an extremely enjoyable game. You'd think that as a fan of classic 16-bit titles I would've remembered that "simplistic" oldies often contain more depth than they're given credit for, and the ones that were truly done right in the first place can offer tons of fun no matter how many years go by.