Tag Archives: puzzle games

April Games

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A couple of completions, but mostly a return to various games I’ve played hundreds of hours of before.

Games completed this month

Sonic Origins Plus – Nintendo Switch

Finished the campaign mode, excellent fun, and a really good way to play these games. I might go and play some of the extra games, but it is still a shame that the included bonus games are all Game Gear versions, when there are much better Master System versions of some of them which would have been more playable.

Tetris Forever – SteamDeck

I’ve fallen down a Tetris hole recently, as you’ll see from some of the other stuff I’ve been playing. This collection is from Digital Eclipse, the same people who brought us the Atari 50 Collection and Llamaoft: The Jeff Minter Story releases. This follows a similar setup, lots of documentary footage and various media accompanying a fairly comprehensive collection of games. You can just dip into any game, but like those other releases, the best way to play it is following the curated timeline. This way it flows like an interactive documentary, where you can sample the games as they are appearing in the history. I very much enjoyed doing that again with this one, but I think I’ll still be dropping in to play the new Tetris Time Warp game too.

Games played during April

Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania Edition – PS5

I’m not playing quite so often now, but have made a bit more progress. I stumbled across the “Explorer Rune” which I didn’t know about before. Basically uncovers the full map when you hit a certain percentage of exploration in a zone. Speeds things up a bit!

Zool Redimensioned – PS5

Haven’t spent a lot of time with this, but I did fire it up and clear the first three worlds. It’s not amazing but I do like how fast it plays and I did always think Zool was a cool character, even if his games weren’t the best.

Mario Kart World – Switch 2

This has found a new lease of life now I’ve finally started playing the Knockout mode. The game as a whole is still a disappointment for various reasons, but playing the online Knockout is some of the most fun I’ve ever had with a Mario Kart game so all is (mostly) forgiven. At least the system also has Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to make up for the shortcomings.

The Quarry – PS5

We continue to make slow progress with this, it’s a good game just have to be in the mood for it. Also we can only play at night, obviously.

Tetris 99 - Switch

Tetris 99 – Switch 2

Of course I’ve been playing Tetris again so this has been taking my life over once more. Still haven’t managed the elusive Tetris Royale, my best remains placing 2nd a couple of times. Sadly I doubt I’m likely to manage it now as the people still playing it are pretty good!

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 - PS5

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 – PS5

Continued the Tetris run with this, realised I had barely touched the campaign so I have been back on that. Sadly I might have hit a wall about 60% in, as I still suck at Puyo Puyo and I’m stuck on a challenging versus battle against the CPU. I may persist.

April Pickups

Suikoden 1 & 2 HD Remaster – Nintendo Switch

Picked this up as my next JRPG to play, mostly because people keep banging on about it so I figured I should at least see what the fuss was about. It did annoy me immediately though, as there is no Switch 2 edition physical, and no way to upgrade the Switch 1 game to Switch 2. Knowing I’d want to trade it in when I finish (or bounce off) the games, I needed the physical release, so I’ve got the slightly poorer quality Switch 1 version to play on my Switch 2. I can’t imagine it makes much difference, but still annoying.

Puzzle Bobble / Bust-a-Move 2X & 3 S-Tribute – Switch 2

Awful title aside, this is a great retro release. Containing the Saturn versions of Puzzle Bobble 2 and 3, and was on sale for ยฃ5. Yes of course I’ve played these games to death, have them on my Saturn and the arcade versions on my cab. However, both those things are in storage and I wanted to play.

*There are no links to Amazon in this post and probably won’t be going forward. When I can be bothered I’m going to remove the old ones and burn my affiliates account.

All-Time Top 5 Arcade Puzzle Games

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A good arcade puzzler is second only to a fighting game for a bit of 2-player versus. Like those fighting games, I’m not much good at these either (although I’m not entirely terrible at Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble). That doesn’t stop me giving them a go though, and I like to play a varietyย so at least I’m not always losing in the same way.

Here we have my Top 5, in reverse order as usual. Many of these games came out on aย multitude of platforms, I’ve just put the versions I play in the title.

5) Zoo Cube (GC & GBA)
A bit neglected as I hardly ever manage to play it with anyone, largely because no one else seems to have heard about it. I enjoy the GameCube version, but have probably spent more time with it on the Gameboy Advance. It’s pretty unique as a puzzler, with falling shapes coming towards your cube from 6 directions, and you having to rotate the cube to match the abstract animal shapes appropriately. The GameCube version supports 4-player, but I’ve never found myself in a room with 4 people who knew how to play…

4) Baku Baku Animal (Saturn)
The second animal themed puzzler on this list, Baku Baku Animal does at least follow a more familiar pattern. Blocks containing animal heads or food stuffs fall from the sky, match the animal to its food to clear the blocks and send more blocks to your opponent. Bright, cheerful and very SEGA!

3) Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (Saturn, PS3, PSP)
Recognisable characters from Capcom’s Street Fighter and Darkstalkers games line up to puzzle each other to death. Big combos on the gem matching front see your character giving the opponent a bit of a kicking in the middle of the screen. If you like the art style of this one, it’s worth also picking up Pocket Fighter, which is a 1 on 1 fighting game in the Street Fighter style, featuring the Puzzle Fighter versions of these characters.

2) Bust-a-Move 2 / Puzzle Bobble 2 (Saturn and anything else I get my hands on)
This held the top spot for a very long time, and may well claw it back in time. The Puzzle Bobble franchise is iconic, often imitated never bettered. Taking it’s characters and design from the Bubble Bobble series, the game is a joy. Fire coloured bubbles up the screen, matching 3 or more of the same colour in order to make them disappear, the more you get rid of at once the more you send over to your opponent to ruin their day. Or more often, you slightly miss your shot, frantically try to repair the damage your own ineptitude has caused while your opponent gleefully sends over more bubbles to add to your ever descending wall.

1) Puyo Puyo Tetris (PS4)
Probably cheating slightly, this is exceptional value given that along with the crazy Puyo Tetris mode (where you’re matching Puyos and making Tetris lines), it also includes arguably the finest versions of both Puyo Puyo and Tetris standalones too. The genius stroke here is when you play a versus match up, each player decides what to play. When competing with my girlfriend, I generally play Tetris against her Puyo Puyo, which gives me an almost fighting chance before my inevitable demise.

Although Puyo Puyo Tetris is still a Japanese only release, it is well worth importing. The menus are all in Japanese but there are plenty of excellent fan-translations online to help you navigate them, and even translations for the entire story mode should you be that way inclined.

Other mentions:
Dr Mario and Columns both almost made the list. Dr Mario missed out because I am entirely useless at it to the point of not enjoying myself even trying. Columns would have made the list if I was working just on childhood memories, it just doesn’t hold up today.