A downright addicting puzzle game that's a ton of fun to play, and hey, I love the Ancient Egypt aesthetic mixed with the chibi Cleopatra.
The use of hieroglyphs is probably not the most accurate, but I'm not expecting hieroglyphical accuracy from a game in 1996. My best attempts to read some of the wall in the loading screen (and PLEASE take this as a very amateurish opinion as I am not an Egyptologist) read out something along the lines of ORDER + LORD + JUSTICE/TRUTH ("Order" coming from the mouth-like symbol which often refers to a given instruction, "Lord" coming from the bowl which typically represents an offering to higher power which is usually a pharaoh or deity, and "Justice/Truth" having a couple of meanings since they come from two feathers of Ma'at, the goddess of justice, truth, balance, and order). If I were to interpret these, it would probably read: "your pharaoh/god will be just"? There's also depictions of a scarab with an owl over water, which seem to refer to Horus, one of the more famous Egyptian deities that are thought to represent the pharaoh, which seems fitting for a game about Cleopatra.
If you couldn't tell, I just wanted an excuse to show off the hieroglyphs I've been learning.
Anyway, let's talk about the gameplay. There's two main pieces you need to worry about: Gems and Stone pieces. Gems are both the sarcophagi and gem pieces, and in order to score points and get rid of them, you must surround them with stone tiles in order to pop them. However, you can't focus on popping gems only because you'll soon find yourself swamped with leftover stone tiles. How do you get rid of them? It's simple, you see: simply make a line with the stone tiles and they'll pop. In essence, it's a little bit like Puyo Puyo where two different pieces come attached to each other, but also a little bit like Tetris where you want to line up the rocks to clear a line. It's super simple gameplay but GOD it's so much fun and the rush of dopamine you feel when you keep popping and crunching down the gems and stones feels incredibly satisfying.
Oh, I should also note that there's a secret THIRD piece that only showed up in the couple runs I did that looks like a rotating pyramid piece. It's essentially a "get out of jail free card" that pops all stone pieces it touches. Kind of neat, but I wouldn't rely on it to show up if you're struggling.
But wait, there's also a FOURTH piece, the mummy! The mummy is pretty simple and acts like a gem, but you can only pop it if it's being popped alongside gems, which isn't a hard ask all things considered.
What I think REALLY elevates this game is the music. Seriously, listen to this! I think for this reason I HAVE to recommend the Sega Saturn version since it offers the cleanest version of this song, it's so good that it singlehandedly bumped up the game to a 4.5 to a 5 star rating.
Seriously, try this game if you like Puzzle games ala Puyo and Tetris, you won't be disappointed!
Colorblindness Rating: A
Sometimes the stone tiles change color, but I think it's just kind of how Tetris pieces change color once you progress past a certain level and as a result, it doesn't really change anything about the gameplay, so it's fine.
The use of hieroglyphs is probably not the most accurate, but I'm not expecting hieroglyphical accuracy from a game in 1996. My best attempts to read some of the wall in the loading screen (and PLEASE take this as a very amateurish opinion as I am not an Egyptologist) read out something along the lines of ORDER + LORD + JUSTICE/TRUTH ("Order" coming from the mouth-like symbol which often refers to a given instruction, "Lord" coming from the bowl which typically represents an offering to higher power which is usually a pharaoh or deity, and "Justice/Truth" having a couple of meanings since they come from two feathers of Ma'at, the goddess of justice, truth, balance, and order). If I were to interpret these, it would probably read: "your pharaoh/god will be just"? There's also depictions of a scarab with an owl over water, which seem to refer to Horus, one of the more famous Egyptian deities that are thought to represent the pharaoh, which seems fitting for a game about Cleopatra.
If you couldn't tell, I just wanted an excuse to show off the hieroglyphs I've been learning.
Anyway, let's talk about the gameplay. There's two main pieces you need to worry about: Gems and Stone pieces. Gems are both the sarcophagi and gem pieces, and in order to score points and get rid of them, you must surround them with stone tiles in order to pop them. However, you can't focus on popping gems only because you'll soon find yourself swamped with leftover stone tiles. How do you get rid of them? It's simple, you see: simply make a line with the stone tiles and they'll pop. In essence, it's a little bit like Puyo Puyo where two different pieces come attached to each other, but also a little bit like Tetris where you want to line up the rocks to clear a line. It's super simple gameplay but GOD it's so much fun and the rush of dopamine you feel when you keep popping and crunching down the gems and stones feels incredibly satisfying.
Oh, I should also note that there's a secret THIRD piece that only showed up in the couple runs I did that looks like a rotating pyramid piece. It's essentially a "get out of jail free card" that pops all stone pieces it touches. Kind of neat, but I wouldn't rely on it to show up if you're struggling.
But wait, there's also a FOURTH piece, the mummy! The mummy is pretty simple and acts like a gem, but you can only pop it if it's being popped alongside gems, which isn't a hard ask all things considered.
What I think REALLY elevates this game is the music. Seriously, listen to this! I think for this reason I HAVE to recommend the Sega Saturn version since it offers the cleanest version of this song, it's so good that it singlehandedly bumped up the game to a 4.5 to a 5 star rating.
Seriously, try this game if you like Puzzle games ala Puyo and Tetris, you won't be disappointed!
Colorblindness Rating: A
Sometimes the stone tiles change color, but I think it's just kind of how Tetris pieces change color once you progress past a certain level and as a result, it doesn't really change anything about the gameplay, so it's fine.