For me Cleaopatra Fortune Plus been my favorite puzzle game since I discovered it not long after getting the ability to be able to netboot my SEGA NAOMI Universal Arcade Cabinet and was practically played for hours everyday for around 8 months.
I’ve not posted about all my high score attempt streams on these forums since I thought it’d get very little interest but I did find a small community of fans for this game over at insert credit where I posted my progress on a regular basis:
Sadly the NAOMI can only hold the high score data for one game and when you change the game it gets wiped, which made me super reluctant to switch games but switch I eventually did and not really played on the cabinet much since…
Also really got to love the original Cleopatra Fortune game on Taito F3 via mame but I’ve gotten to the point where I can 1CC that version almost every time now usually with a 6m+ score to boot.
There are so many great puzzle games, but Kururin Paradise is the one. Guiding that rotating stick through those mazes is as intense as it gets — such fine margins! Currently running through the original, which is equally essential, though slightly more straightforward…
Also pictured is Quarth — on the surface a combination of Tetris and Space Invaders. Very much its own thing once you get into it! Konami could do no wrong back then… Here’s a bonus family photo:
Agreed on Kururin Paradise. I just finished Squash recently and it was fantastic, but going back to Paradise over the weekend reminded me how testing that older title really is - the helicopter feels so much wider in relation to your surroundings!
Might check out Quarth on Game Boy, I wasn’t very good at it on the Arcade Archives release though.
This is a bit of a deep cut, but when I was young I really loved playing BlockOut on the Amiga. Funny that the wiki doesn’t seem to mention the Amiga or the Atari ST versions. I’m sure there are more ports than just that.
It’s essentially 3D Tetris, and it’s done extremely well. You can start the game with a number of options like the size of the field (3x3, 4x4, 5x5 etc) and the depth of the field.
Most interestingly, you can choose the block types, from all flat shapes which is the easiest, to crazy 3D shapes that take a ton of practice to be able to use correctly.
Because it’s all 3D, you have 6 rotation keys, 3 in clockwise, and 3 in counter clockwise. Then you can move the pieces with the mouse, and drop with a mouse button.
It leads to a really simple learning curve, but affords a lot of skill and depth if you put in the time to get decent at it.
I’ve always really liked Baku Baku on the Saturn. It’s kind of a Puyo Puyo-like but the one or two mechanical differences are fun enough to be worthwhile.
Penguin Land was really hard, at least when I was 7.
Wow, this is interesting, T&E Soft did a game like this on Virtual Boy. Block Out predated it by half a decade!
Baku Baku is one of my favourites too - frantic stuff. Reminds me of Panel de Pon in some ways. I finished it on the hardest difficulty on Game Gear but the Saturn version is a fair bit harder so one day…
btw - unrelated but I just read your Ys IX review and it’s so on point about both the game and Falcom’s recent confused direction by way of having to cater to both modern and classic fans.
I used to be into Poker Smash for a while. It came out on Xbox Live Arcade and iOS, but has since then been delisted as far as I know. Poker Smash is actually a Panel de Pon clone with poker cards instead of colored blocks. It’s pretty much a blatent copy, but there is this extra layer of creating poker card combinations, which made the game pretty interesting to me. It came out at a time where there was this poker hype. So I’m sure that factored into creating it. There was a kickstarter in 2013 to bring it to PC, but I don’t think they ever released it. Or maybe only for a short while, since there used to be a download link to the developer’s website, but this one 404’s nowadays. Not the best puzzle game ever, but it was pretty good actually. It’s too bad it has been lost due to it being a digital only game.
But this is a stealth Tetris post — I know, I couldn’t be more off topic if I tried… Hear me out! I always wanted to play Success’ version and I finally did today. The modern mechanics are in place, like hold and hard drop. In combination with the old school d-pad of the GBA you feel like you can do anything with the pieces. The soundtrack pumps through headphones and catapults you into the zone. I smashed half a million on my first run and I’m by no means a Tetris master — that score is a testament to the brilliance of this game!
Back on topic, Puzzle Bobble is also good, if not quite so euphoric…
Ooh! Didn’t realise Success released a Japan-only version of Tetris on GBA! That’s one to add to my list while I’m still in Japan. Also keeping my eyes peeled for the Wonderswan version, which I foolishly passed on when I last saw it in Kobe.
