What Is The Best Puzzle Game/Series Ever?
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!
[poll id=”9″]
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Great list, however somehow you forgot Panel de Pon/ Tetris Attack/ Planet Puzzle League.
Tetris, of course, is king. Of the rest of the list, Lolo is probably the one that hooked (and irritated) me the most. I was happy as hell when I discovered emulators and save states; Lolo was one of the first games I ever emulated!
I have to admit, there are a lot on this list I haven’t heard of. Another of my votes went to Bust-A-Move, though I played a lot more of the clone Snood. Peggle is the best “new” puzzle game I’ve seen in a long time. My final selection was Pipe Dream; I recall spending many late nights with that game on a Windows 3.11 box as a kid. Good times. 🙂
Wow, that’s a fantastically comprehensive list…never thought I’d see something like that.
I guess I should hang around the forums, I’d like to have nominated Lode Runner. It’s action-y for the first few levels, but you’ll recognize its pure puzzle-y goodness in the later levels when you die over and over and over if you don’t have your entire run planned out ahead of time.
And somebody gets mad props for remembering The Incredible Machine…haven’t thought about that game in years, but does it ever bring back memories! Frustrating ones!
I see no one has voted for Zoop. I am not surprised.
Zoop > *
Most amazing puzzle game ever.
Andrew — those are on there. Don’t know how you could have missed that long combo name 🙂
Sweet, four out of five selections in the top five!
SMH at the percentages. Original in this case is not the best, but whatever.
Are you referring to Tetris?
I still love playing the Gameboy version….
No Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine!?
Mean Bean Machine is a Puyo Puyo game 🙂
Had to vote for Yoshi. Spent a lot of time on that as a kid.
Interesting poll, says a lot about the traffic at this site.
An obscure, yet fun game I’m surprised not to see is puzzloop/magnetica. Not that I’d vote for it though, LOL. It might make my top 10 though. Such a great genre, my heart broke when I had to leave off TSS and Dr Mario.
Puzzle fans should get octomania for wii. It has online play! It’s fun! Plus I can’t find anybody to play.
Hey where’s Klax? Just kidding!
I expect a follow up with a list of all Tetris games ever made.
Perhaps a list with the rarest tetris games and a list with the best tetris games. Just check out tetrisconcept.com and their wiki for details!
Go Baku Baku, what there are seven of us crazy fans here.
Panel de Pon has to be my favorite puzzle game. Hands down. No other puzzle game excites me as much.
Guru Logic Champ on the GBA, where?
besides that, tetris/attack and puyo pop for me.
Where is Worms????
That the best of all.
I would’ve loved to have seen Pnickies on this list. It’s one of the most infectious puzzle games ever… in fact, I can’t think of another game where my score was so important to me.
Glad to see Meteos getting some respect!
Panel de Pon and Tetris are the two best games on the list, hands down. Also worth noting is that Bust a Move/Puzzle Bobble isn’t as good as the clone, Snood.
dude, if you dont like tetris than i dont know what to think or say about you. and zoop was okay, it was just hard as fuck. i apologize for the vulgarity but no other word does the difficulty in that game justice
bust a move>>>>the lousy ripoff that is snood
I don’t like resorting to such a cliche, but it blows my mind that anyone who has played the two games would say that snood is better in any way. It is slower, and more importantly totally lacks the vs elements that make bust a move so fun. That it is so much more popular in the US than the game it ripped off speaks to the ignorance of the average American gamer.
Tetris still is really good. My favorite version is the New Tetris on n64. 4 player split screen still hasn’t been topped, plus the cube-building is actually a major improvement to the classic formula. That said, I have high hopes for the wiiware version coming out soon.
Honestly, I’m surprised Columns is doing so well in the ranking. I never really saw the appeal in the series — seemed kinda weak, IMO.
If I’d been around for the nominating process I would have suggested Landmaker and Ghostlop (my favorites after Magical Drop 3), but the selection’s pretty nice as it is. 🙂 Not to mention that about a half-dozen people aside from me have ever played either of those, heh heh.