Puyo Puyo & Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine.

I fuckin LOVE Puyo Puyo. It's my #1 favorite puzzle game ever (Tetris Attack being #2 on the list). And it's hard to explain why I love it so much, so you would have to play the game for yourself in order to understand it. Its VERY addicting as well. Basically you have to match 4 or more of the same colored Puyo's that drop down from the top of the screen... kinda like Dr. Mario, only with a twist. Let's just say that in Dr. Mario, you couldn't make L's or 7's or C's or even squares. But why am I talking about a simple puzzle game if there's not much to say about puzzle games in general?

Well, this game was made in Japan, and yes... just like Dynamite Headdy, the US gave it a new coat of paint, and jacked up the difficulty. Only this time they went all out EXTREME. This is what I mean... Puyo Puyo was first an arcade game that later got a home console port for BOTH the Sega Mega Drive and Super Famicom systems (which are the Japan versions of the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo). The Mega Drive version was a almost perfect replica of the arcade version. I say "almost" cause the character's voices werent added. However in the Super Famicom, they WERE added, plus a few more bonus features. Only thing the Super Famicom bombed at was the music department. Now lemme go off-topic here by saying that THIS factor is my only pet peeve with the Super Nintendo... the music. With the exception of the Mario games and even the Donkey Kong games (which not only were exclusive to Super Nintendo, but actually had good music on the Super Nintendo), every single game that had both a Genesis and Super Nintendo release had shitty music in the Super Nintendo version. Take Street Fighter II as another example. The Genesis version is damn near PERFECT, every stage song, every contact hit is exactly like the arcade. As for the Super Nintendo, well... let's just say the graphics might be a bit better, but the sound and music was less impressive to the ears.

Anywho, it wasn't long before the US picked up on this craze, but for SOME REASON, they decided to give the game a whole new identity not once, but TWICE. That's right, the Genesis and Super Nintendo versions are different Puyo Puyo games with different characters. The japan game used the characters from an old japan game called "Madou Monogatari", which ironically was made by the same guy that came up with Puyo Puyo. In the story of Puyo Puyo, there is a girl named Arle Nadja, who is accompanied by a dragon that looks like a bunny. His name is Carbuncle, and is said to be the master Puyo Puyo player. He can also shoot a powerful laser from his forehead, whether or not THAT is the reason why he is also the strongest and most powerful being in the Puyo Puyo world is beyond me. Also, Carbuncle (A.K.A. Car-Kun... yea idk) is pretty much the mascot for the Puyo Puyo series in japan. Car-Kun is always in danger though as a certain villain is trying to kidnap him to keep as his pet (or to harness his power, idk I always forget which one it is, it could be both), and his name (get ready for this) is Satan. I wish I was joking, but then again, this isn't the first time the Japanese use the devil's name in a video game. DragonballZ anyone? So yea, Satan is accompanied by a female martial artist named Rulue, who for someone that has a profession of kicking-ass she sure loves to get all dressed up. In Puyo Puyo 1 - 3 she's always wearing a white dress that looks more like what someone would wear many years ago in Greece (like what people wear at toga parties). She is in love with Satan and will do anything he tells her to do... wow. She has a servant names "Minotauros" who is literally a dude with a head of a Bull... with a scar on his eye. Only problem is that he acts like a pussywhipped sap most of the time. So yea, aside from all that, Arle encounters all other crazy characters, which i could go on explaining what they are all about, but I wont. Let's just say at stage 2 of Puyo Puyo, she encounters a fish with human arms and legs... yeeeeaaaaaa after that, it just gets more fucked up.

Onto the US versions... like I said, they both got turned into different games. The one on Super Nintendo became "Kirby's Avalanch" and as you can guess, it stars everyone's favorite pink marshmallow, Kirby. I wont be getting in-depth with the game for a few reasons. 1. I never owned a Super Nintendo, I only heard about the game and played it from a friend that had one (which was like 3 or 4 years ago... no joke). 2. I was never really into Kirby that much, in fact, i never even had the first game for the Nintendo, so me talking about Kirby is like a Mario fanatic talking about the Sonic series... majority of it is assumptions rather than facts. Although I will say that Lolo and Lala from "The Adventures Of LoLo" make a cameo appearance in Kirby's Avalanch. The other game for the Sega Genesis was called "Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine", which actually became more popular than i thought cause not once, but TWICE it made an appearance in a Sonic game collection series. Once on the Genesis in a collection that had Sonic 1, Sonic 2, and Dr. R's MBM all in one cartridge, and again in the more recent "Sonic Mega Collection" (both the GameCube and + version on PS2 & XBox). This is the only game that has the Sonic cast from "The Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog", which was one of the Sonic tv shows that aired in the mornings. The other one Being "Sonic The Hedgehog", which later got called Sonic SATAM for obvious reasons. The characters from THAT show can be found in Sonic Spinball (told you I'm a sonic fan ;) lol). Anywho, I know you're going "um i only recognize coconuts, scratch and grounder... where did the other robots make their appearance?". On the very first episode of course. All of them (with the exception of Spike... I can't find him anywhere in the first episode, OR in any of the other episodes), show themselves when Sonic raids the Bounty Hunter's convention, except for Dragonbreath which makes an appearance before that. The story in the game is that Dr. Robotnik is taking control of "Beanville" and he want's to make sure that no one gets in his way. Yes, the Puyo's are now called Beans in this game, and the garbage is called "Refugee Beans". However Car-Kun still makes an appearance in this game but he's called "Has Bean"... yea its a dumb pun, i know. But yea it's not just the names that got changed, everything else got changed as well. For example, when you select senario mode, it gives you a new game or continue option that you have to enter a password. The japan Puyo Puyo games, AND even the Kirby's Avalance game didnt have that. They allowed you to pick a "beginners" game which only had 3 stages, a normal game, which sent you directly to stage 1, and another normal game, which sent you to stage 4 with some bonus points to start off with. I guess they ran out of Sonic characters to use so they just got rid of the beginner game entirely. Another thing you'll notice is that there is no main character... thats right, if you thought Sonic was in the game, think again. It's just the robots giving you smack talk in the game before you go against them. Once again, the Japan Puyo Puyo and the Kirby game had a main character. Only explination I can come up with as to why Sega did this is cause they wanted to make it seem like the player was playing as sonic through a first person view, and if that's the case, then its dumb. Guarentee you if they put Sonic in the game and called it "Sonic The Hedgehog in Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine" or something like that, sales would have doubled, regardless if it wasa puzzle game or not. After all, everyone bought Sonic Spinball even though it was just another pinball game but with Sonic, so why couldnt they do the same with this game?

Theres other things about this game that I can talk about, like the music... which sounds better than the original Puyo Puyo game surprisingly (except for the annoying repetitive stages 1-8 song). Basically its the orignal Puyo Puyo songs but with different instruments, most noticeably, the drums. Although some songs actually got different arrangements, or are totally different songs all together. The graphics are impressive, which makes you wonder why the characters from the japan Puyo Puyo game don't look as good as the characters on this game. Basically the characters in Dr. R's MBM have shadows and highlights, making them a slight more realistic as if they were actually inside that lil box in the middle, rather than all cartoonish like Puyo Puyo. The options menu in this game doesn't have alot to offer either. No secret sound test mode like the japan Puyo Puyo game has, which is sad cause I think Sound Test is the best feature in options mode. It's sad that alot of the newer games don't have that feature. Then again, I dont recall having a Nintendo game that had that option either. Maybe it was strictly a Genesis/Super Nintendo thing, idk. And lastly, there's the difficulty. As you would have guessed, its jacked up a bit. I can clear through Puyo Puyo on my Genesis emulator with ease, even on the hardest difficulty, maybe loosing like once or twice. With Dr. R's MBM, I'm ALWAYS stuck facing the same robot over and over, even on normal difficult. And it's always a different robot too, more so after stage 4, thats when it starts to get hectic. For example. One day I kept loosing to Grounder, and then the next day, I'm continuously loosing to Sir Fuzzy Logic.

Anywho, that was the last time the US ever saw a Puyo Puyo game, until Puyo Pop Fever for the GameCube. Thankfully this was around the same time where the US decided to stop fuckin around with Japan games ad decided to release them to the US as is... except for HORRIBLE dubbed english voices. But as you can guess, Puyo Puyo became a phenomenon in Japan, spawning so many games and remakes of the classic games. The formula got better as well. In Puyo Puyo 2, you can rebound the garbage back to the other person if you get a combo while theirs garbage waiting to drop on you. In Puyo Puyo 3, a new "Sun" Puyo was added, making your garbage amount given to the opponent increase by like 1.5 if you cleared the Sun with the normal Puyo Puyos. And in Puyo Puyo 4, each character had their own attacks, whether it was clearing all puyos of a certain color, destroying a specific section of the board , or even protecting your field with a shield that prevented garbage from fallin. I'm personally not a fan of the GameCube Puyo Pop Fever game because they added the "3 or 4 puyos falling in your tray at once" instead of the traditional 2. That and now TWO areas are considered death points instead of the traditional one death area... kinda messes up my pattern I always use in Puyo Puyo.

Overall, I believe that Puyo Puyo would have had a more popular impact on the US if they decided to not change anything and keep releasing sequals like they did in Japan, but hey, at least it's better than nothing I suppose. Doesn't stop me from playing the Japanese games of course. Puyo Puyo 3 and 4 for the PS1 are my favorites. That and Puyo Puyo 2 remix for the SNES... that game has 4 player option. ALWAYS better when theres more people to play with :D