Something something Puyo Puyo. I remember being a kid and finding it weird that this played exactly like Kirby's Avalanche, not knowing better until excavating an early Wikipedia around the mid-00s.
Anyway, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Pretty Hate Machine is a game I played every once in a while, because--like Sonic Spinball--SEGA is very insistent in porting it on everything possible. I'd play the "Scenario mode" and get a few stages in, until the bot decides to wipe the floor with their fast, calculated moves. I decide I'm not smart enough for what is Puyo Puyo's simplistic puzzle system, and move on.
UNTIL TODAY. I fucking beat it. I finally got to see all the ugly bot designs I never actually saw, and that disgustingly (awesome) Robotnik design taunt me to the end. I got rocked pretty often against these asshole bots, but eventually won! Only for the ending to say "Now do hard mode" to which I said "Fuck you, no" and shut the game off.
I'm still not very good at this game, but I do understand that an easy way to get chain combos is to stack colors near each-other (something a child could figure out) and try to get single colors lined up correctly so they pop and fall in the right order. But time is of the essence, because your opponent can chain combos and throw blank balls onto your lane to mess up your strategy. So the constant question is, do you have enough time to stack up a chain to hit them hard? Or should you go for a quick 2-hit chain in order to mess them up briefly to keep up?
I don't find Puyo Puyo as engaging as other puzzle games, but it's got its own rhythm and sense of satisfaction. I probably would like the game more if I played the original version, instead of this weird product designed "for Western audiences" by coating it in the paint of this Saturday morning cartoon.
Anyway, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Pretty Hate Machine is a game I played every once in a while, because--like Sonic Spinball--SEGA is very insistent in porting it on everything possible. I'd play the "Scenario mode" and get a few stages in, until the bot decides to wipe the floor with their fast, calculated moves. I decide I'm not smart enough for what is Puyo Puyo's simplistic puzzle system, and move on.
UNTIL TODAY. I fucking beat it. I finally got to see all the ugly bot designs I never actually saw, and that disgustingly (awesome) Robotnik design taunt me to the end. I got rocked pretty often against these asshole bots, but eventually won! Only for the ending to say "Now do hard mode" to which I said "Fuck you, no" and shut the game off.
I'm still not very good at this game, but I do understand that an easy way to get chain combos is to stack colors near each-other (something a child could figure out) and try to get single colors lined up correctly so they pop and fall in the right order. But time is of the essence, because your opponent can chain combos and throw blank balls onto your lane to mess up your strategy. So the constant question is, do you have enough time to stack up a chain to hit them hard? Or should you go for a quick 2-hit chain in order to mess them up briefly to keep up?
I don't find Puyo Puyo as engaging as other puzzle games, but it's got its own rhythm and sense of satisfaction. I probably would like the game more if I played the original version, instead of this weird product designed "for Western audiences" by coating it in the paint of this Saturday morning cartoon.
FallenGrace
1 year ago