Hanagumi Taisen Columns
released on Mar 28, 1997
This game is a spin-off of Sakura Taisen and Columns. This was developed by Sega and was released in 1997 for the ST-V arcade board and the Sega Saturn in Japan. The game follows the Sakura Taisen story line and uses Columns gameplay.
Also in series
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It’s Columns but Sakura Wars! What else can really be said lol. It was a fun time and I enjoyed the expanded characterization of some of the side characters who didn’t get much time in the main game, I think Yuri, Kasumi, and Tsubaki were my favorites and I loved the added character for Ayame. Just a goofy side adventure that was a fun time from start to finish.
A good puzzle game, like Columns, with some fan service that does a good job as a spin-off of the Sakura Wars franchise.
Play this game if you like Columns or if you want more Sakura Wars related stuff in your life.
Play this game if you like Columns or if you want more Sakura Wars related stuff in your life.
cute little spinoff of sakura wars. the chibis are well expressed, the plot is dumb spinoff fun, and the puzzle gameplay is columns. play if you like sakura wars and/or columns. I guess the multiplayer could be something but I don't know because I haven't played it with anyone.
How much do aesthetics matter? I mean do themes make things better than their base components should be? I ask this simply because, (and I'm going to state the obvious here) your milage for this game is going to vary depending on your enjoyment of Columns and Sakura Wars. Whilst I love the art and music of the latter, I'm not the biggest fan of the former. The positives were enough to keep pushing me playing this past the point I'd have probably stopped otherwise.
If you've never played Columns, the gameplay has you set against an opponent like Tetris. You match rows of coloured gems that drop down placing in rows of 3 in matching colours to destroy. If they chain together as more drop into the right pace when some are destroyed you can chain to a higher score. The difference here from regular columns is that you can build up power as you destroy gems to either use to remove rows from your side or add them to your opponents. The catch being you can only do these choices when you reach that level rather than when would be most opportune for you. The gems you launch at your opponent appear as dice and can't be destroyed until the dice timer goes down. Like if it's a five you have to place or destroy blocks 5 times worth to get them to turn into normal gems. You opponent can do the same thing to you in return as you compete to fill each others side up until one of you loses.
The issue I have is two fold in that the balance is a little all over the place where you can win in an absolute landslide or get crushed just as easily. Some of it seems to comes down to absolute luck of getting a massive chain when the dice number trickles down and happens to just give you a massive amount of gems destroyed to boost your meter to send them to your opponent at the right time. Eventually on around stage 8 on arcade mode though I hit a wall of an opponent that just constantly got huge boosts and hit me with undestroyable dice at the top of the screen. After about 45 minutes of trying I quit. My second issue is that in other games in this genre you can turn your pieces to get them into more useful locations. This, (and it's kind of in the name Columns) is purely vertical where you rearrange the gem order only without turning the piece in a potentially more useful horizontal position. It will always lose to others in the genre due to this in my opinion.
This brings me onto the other half of this game, the Sakura Wars aesthetics. It's a spin off from the original Saturn game and a neat idea done fairly well. I've always really like the art and music to this series so I'd be willing to play almost any type of game with this put into it. You pick one of the girls from the Imperial Combat Revue's Flower Division who seem to be playing each other on handheld games to see who gets put in the poor background part in their next play. If you lose, you're the one in the horse costume etc. During gameplay there are animated pictures of the characters in the background and all the music is from the original game too though I was disappointed it seems to be instrumental versions only. No vocal theme song, from Sakura Wars? Really?
Overall it's not bad. There is a sequel on the Dreamcast that has been translated into English by fans I'll have to try down the line at some point.
If you've never played Columns, the gameplay has you set against an opponent like Tetris. You match rows of coloured gems that drop down placing in rows of 3 in matching colours to destroy. If they chain together as more drop into the right pace when some are destroyed you can chain to a higher score. The difference here from regular columns is that you can build up power as you destroy gems to either use to remove rows from your side or add them to your opponents. The catch being you can only do these choices when you reach that level rather than when would be most opportune for you. The gems you launch at your opponent appear as dice and can't be destroyed until the dice timer goes down. Like if it's a five you have to place or destroy blocks 5 times worth to get them to turn into normal gems. You opponent can do the same thing to you in return as you compete to fill each others side up until one of you loses.
The issue I have is two fold in that the balance is a little all over the place where you can win in an absolute landslide or get crushed just as easily. Some of it seems to comes down to absolute luck of getting a massive chain when the dice number trickles down and happens to just give you a massive amount of gems destroyed to boost your meter to send them to your opponent at the right time. Eventually on around stage 8 on arcade mode though I hit a wall of an opponent that just constantly got huge boosts and hit me with undestroyable dice at the top of the screen. After about 45 minutes of trying I quit. My second issue is that in other games in this genre you can turn your pieces to get them into more useful locations. This, (and it's kind of in the name Columns) is purely vertical where you rearrange the gem order only without turning the piece in a potentially more useful horizontal position. It will always lose to others in the genre due to this in my opinion.
This brings me onto the other half of this game, the Sakura Wars aesthetics. It's a spin off from the original Saturn game and a neat idea done fairly well. I've always really like the art and music to this series so I'd be willing to play almost any type of game with this put into it. You pick one of the girls from the Imperial Combat Revue's Flower Division who seem to be playing each other on handheld games to see who gets put in the poor background part in their next play. If you lose, you're the one in the horse costume etc. During gameplay there are animated pictures of the characters in the background and all the music is from the original game too though I was disappointed it seems to be instrumental versions only. No vocal theme song, from Sakura Wars? Really?
Overall it's not bad. There is a sequel on the Dreamcast that has been translated into English by fans I'll have to try down the line at some point.