Presented by: Fastbilly1 & Racketboy
New To Together Retro? Check out the introduction to the club

In 1995 the video game puzzle scene was changed forever. It in was that year that Sega released Baku Baku, a revolutionary puzzle game in the falling block genre. Of course everyone knew this since Baku Baku is a house hold name… Sarcastic overtones aside, Baku Baku is an arcade puzzle game ported to most Sega consoles and for the most part has gone unnoticed by the general gaming population. Well lets change that. This month for Together Retro, gear up for your attempt at being a zoo keeper and its feeding time.

History

As stated, in 1995 Baku Baku was released in the arcade on the Sega Titan Video hardware. Little fanfare was heard for the arcade release, but the next year it got its biggest boost in popularity outside of Japan. In the spring of 1996 it was released on the Saturn and it was given high marks by many gaming publications – Gamepro even gave it a 5 out of 5 in fun factor.There is not much one can say about the history other than it is a good game that was overlooked by most of the gaming population. Even though it is unneeded, the story for the game is that you are trying to become the royal zoo keeper and must compete with others for the title. If you have ever played a puzzle game the gameplay will be familiar. Simple left or right turn buttons and a joystick are all that you have but as you can imagine, that’s not all there is here.

In Baku Baku blocks come in two types, food and animal. Their may be five of each type of block, but they are still only food and animal. A simple paring mechanism is in place here, ie Dog and Bone, Panda and Bamboo. So when a dog block and a bone block touch, the dog block becomes a big dog head and eats the bone block, and all attached bone blocks. This, of course, leads to combos and endless bizarre gameplay concoctions.

Controls

• Two buttons – rotate left and rotate right
• 8 way joystick
• Two player – obviously the preferred way to play

Recommended Ports

Unless you have the original arcade machine hanging around, you’ll probably want to go for the Saturn version if you have the console handy. (You can also try playing it on an emulator like SSF ).

You could also try get your hands on on the Windows 95, Game Gear, or Master System release. The nice thing about puzzle games is they typically transition well to less powerful hardware. Of course, the Game Gear/Master System versions will emulate easily on a variety of devices.

Sega Saturn	Windows 95	Game Gear	Master System

Emulation Help

Racketboy Emulation Forum

Together Retro Discussion & High Scores

• Discuss The Game in the Forum
• Post Your High Scores Here

Way before the Nintendo popularized “casual gaming” on the DS and Wii, we had a number of incredible puzzle games to work our brains and provide us with an addicting sense of challenge, competition and accomplishment.  Of course, many games in the puzzle genre are heavily inspired by Tetris, but the best have added enough new concepts and strategies to make them worthwhile.

Being a lover of the genre, it’s hard for me to really narrow down a list of my absolute favorites, but if I had to choose only 5, I would probably go with the original Tetris, Meteos, Magical Drop, Super Puzzle Fighter, and Baku Baku.

Now it’s your turn to vote for your favorite puzzle games and/or franchises.  You can pick up to five selections for your vote.  Thanks to the forum for their nominations!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Note from racketboy: fastbilly1 shares one of his favorite hidden puzzlers from the Super Famicom (SNES). I admit that I had never heard of this game, so I want to thank him for pointing this gem out.

It is always nice when you have a craving to play a classic games like Tetris, but end up discovering a relatively unknown spinoff that is just as amazing as the original. In this case, the undiscovered gem is Tetris Battle Gaiden.

With a quick look it would appear just like any other Tetris clone. On the surface, Tetris Battle Gaiden appears to be a shallow game with a tacked on theme that would leave me longing to play the original. For some time, I was a big puzzle game fan and thought I had played almost every variation of the classic (and yes most of them are the same). However, this Japanese-only Super Famicom release, snuck by.

Blue Planet Software (Also known as Bullet Proof Software – Tetris for the Gameboy, Faceball 2000) released this game in 1993 to little fanfare. (Go ahead, Google it, see if anything comes up other than ROM sites). It is understandable that this slipped under most of our radars. I mean, this was before the internet was main stream and well before emulators were decent. I would say it is akin to Wrecking Crew 98, Battle Lode Runner, or Panel De Pon, but all of those have been given more limelight than this discarded beauty.

Enough reasons why you have not heard about it, let’s get into why you should care about this gem. Imagine a game where you combine the best parts of Puyo Puyo and Tetris. (For those who do not know about the Puyo Puyo series, imagine if Columns and Super Puzzle Fighter were combined). Essentially, Tetris Battle Gaiden is Tetris with Super Attacks and Power-ups added to the mix.

Each character in the game has four levels of power that do anything from blind the opponent to clear out lines. However to use the powers you have to obtain power orbs that are mixed into the normal pieces.

Another twist in Tetris Battle Gaiden is that the piece pool is shared. So if you see an orb-lodged piece it is usually a frantic rush to be able to grab the piece. Once you have one placed, you need to complete that line so you can obtain the orb. Each orb gives you one level toward your powers. Like I said previously, you have four powers, meaning four levels. The powers are activated by pushing up and then the fun begins.

To explain the powers better I will use my favorite character, Halloween (the pumpkin), as an example:

1. Gets rid of your bottom 3 lines
2. Makes opponents screen dark for 3 pieces
3. Steals all of the opponents orbs in queue
4. Randomly blows up lines in opponents game area

As you can see they go from utterly broken, level 4, to useless, level 2, all 8 of the standard characters are like this (the two hidden characters, Dragon and Queen, are just broken all around).

Sure the story mode is tripe, it is a Tetris game after all, but the gameplay is absolutely amazing. Several of my casual gaming friends who love Tetris have stated they will never play this version because it implements to much “luck” into a game of skill, but all of my gamer friends have switched over the bulk of their Tetris gaming to this version. It is a little kooky, a little childish, but man is it fun.

To get a better feel for the game lets take a look at a video clip of the game in action. Be aware that the players are competing at a relatively slow pace — the game can get much faster and intense.

Tetris is one of those classic games that is simple to learn, but very difficult to master. The game has gone through many iterations over the last two decades, but people all around the world are still devoted to the game and developing new skills to show off. Inspired by this forum post by Radarscope1, I wanted to show off some of the most impressive Tetris videos that will make you seriously doubt your own abilities as a gamer.

Most of these videos are based off the Japanese arcade series, Tetris: The Grand Master from Akira. I did add the best NES and Gameboy videos I could find as well since those games are actually a little stricter with the rules, and therefore, more challenging. If you have any other impressive Tetris videos to share, please post them in the comments section below. I’d like to find some impressive videos of older versions of the game like the Gameboy or NES, but others are welcome as well.

Japan Finals 2001

Some classic footage from the Tetris Japan Finals from 2001 using Tetris: The Grand Master 2 – The Absolute from Akira.

Invisible Blocks

Here is a newer video that is using Tetris: The Grand Master 3 – Terror Instinct. Pay special attention to the end where the credits for the game start rolling — the blocks turn invisible upon landing, so the player is flying blind.

One-Handed

Ok, so you’ve seen some fast and accurate Tetris action. Now, lets try it with one hand.

Two-Player Mode With One Person

Now, lets take a look at the Doubles Mode on Grand Master Absolute Plus. This mode is intended to be played by two players (which would be challenging enough), but this particular player is controlling both joysticks himself. Obviously, this player isn’t going through blocks quite as fast, but it is still impressive.

Pattern Recognition

At first, this one doesn’t look terribly impressive until you realize the player is creating a pattern with gaps in the pieces. Upon his completion, you’ll notice the player receives a special grade at the end.

NES Tetris: 25 Lines at Level 9, High 5 Clear

Since the old-school Tetris fans want to see some of the original Tetris games (before the relaxed gameplay rules) being mastered, here’s the best I could find. Pretty much all the difficulty settings have been maxed out on the NES version and he clears the level.

Gameboy Tetris: Level 9 Heart Height 5

Tetris on the Gameboy is my personal favorite and this video is the best I’ve seen.

Super-Fast Tetris Clone

While most Tetris experts drop their blocks instantly anyway, here’s a clip of an open-source Tetris clone that is insanely fast by default.

Majesco, however has recently published more information about their upcoming remake of Bust-A-Move (aka Puzzle Bobble) that will take full advantage of the motion detection all while keeping the old-school feel.

If you aren’t familiar with the series, it is a puzzle game that has multi-colored bubble you need to pop. At the bottom of the screen, the player controls the angle of a fixed cannon that fires semi-randomly colored balls in a straight line. When you think about it for a bit, the Wii controller is actually a perfect fit for the game — possibly better than a standard controller since you can move the cannon from side to side much quicker. (Accuracy, on the other hand, may be a bit of a challenge).

While Majesco did not confirm the control scheme lineup, I would think that it would be a safe bet that a standard control scheme would also be supported via the Wii-mote’s D-pad, Gamecube controllers, or the Retro controller.

If both control schemes are implemented, you can be sure that this will be THE next-gen title to own for anybody interested in puzzle games.

Oh! And in case the control schemes weren’t enough to get you excited, Bust A Move Bash will also blow other games in the series out of the water with its multi-player options due to its support of up to eight simultaneous human players. This may push Bust A Move Bash close to the ranks of Saturn Bomberman for best old-school party game.

Similar Posts From These Categories:
Nintendo, Wii, Puzzle

Up until now, GBA fans have been in the dust when looking for a new puzzler. But there is a new homebrew Lumines clone by the name of Gleam that is availible for the Gameboy Advance and is getting rave reviews in the Gameboy community.

Gleam’s author, AkumaATR writes…
“I created this game because I wanted to see if I could make a similar game targeted to an older platform that I was already fond of — the Game Boy Advance.”

Gleam shares the same great gameplay of Lumines and is one of the best clones availible. This game runs on the GBA and the Nintendo DS (with flash carts). The only downside is that the game ROM is huge, so it barely fit on my 256meg cart.

Those that do not have a Gameboy Advance Flash Cart can use a GBA emulator like VisualBoy Advance to play the game as well.

In addition to Gleam’s colorful graphics, it also contains 4 levels with some very nice music made by Madsoul.

You can download the ROM of Gleam or check out the project’s page.
There are also a few videos of Gleam in action over at YouTube.

Similar Posts From These Categories:
Puzzles, Portable Gaming, Gameboy