Tetris is an undeniable classic in the annals of video games.  There can be no doubt about that; in many ways, it was to the Silver Age what Pac-Man was to the Golden, the “gateway drug” for anyone, not just dedicated gamers, to get into this wonderful hobby.  Boys and girls alike, ages 5 to 105, can play Tetris and love it, which is something not even Super Mario Bros. can claim!

But man does not live by Tetris alone.  Suppose you have a puzzle-game itch to scratch, but if you see one more tetromino falling into a pit you’l go insane. What to do?  Well, you could bust out one of the games below…  These are my picks for the best puzzle games that are not part of the Tetris Family.

We start with one honorable mention, then go right into the countdown…

Hon. Mention: Sailor Moon SuperS: Fuwa Fuwa Panic! (Super Famicom, 1995): The number of licensed games that are actually good is very low indeed.  This, fortunately, is one of them.  Taking characters from the perennially-popular Sailor Moon anime and sticking them SD-style into a balloon-popping, color-matching, head-to-head contest is surprisingly fun, and even without the license would still be worth playing… but the different “powers” each of the Sailor Senshi can use on their opponents (or to help out their own cause) are a kick.  There’s also a unique twist in that each time you use your Senshi’s special power it draws from a “strength meter” - and if it ever hits zero, your Senshi will revert to her weaker “human” identity, and you’ll have to pop more balloons to get her to transform again.  It’s in Japanese only, of course, but fortunately a translation isn’t necessary to fully appreciate this cute puzzler.  Unless you absolutely cannot stomach the Sailor Moon milieu in any form (and I know some of you are like that), this one’s well worth hunting up if you’re at all a puzzle-game fan.

10. The Adventures of Lolo (NES, 1989): HAL Laboratories must have a thing for blob-shaped mascots; even before Kirby, there was a blue powder-puff with saucer eyes named Lolo, the star of a series of puzzle games (the “Eggerland” series) for the Japanese MSX and Famicom platforms.  The game we know as The Adventures of Lolo is actually a “Best Of” compilation of puzzles from those earlier titles.  As with all other games in the series, your goal is to collect all the hearts on each screen to open the treasure chest, then grab the contents of said chest to open the door to the next screen.  The trick is in learning in what order to collect the hearts, as well as discovering the best way to deal with the various enemies on each level; some will become active when the last heart is collected, others will kill Lolo if he occupies the same row and column of the screen they do, and still others exist only to get in Lolo’s way and block access to necessary hearts.  In each level the puzzle to be solved is different, and in many cases it will take trial-and-error and much experimentation to find the proper solution.  This game will challenge both your brainpower and your creativity.  Its only drawback is that there is only one looping tune heard throughout the game; it’s not particularly obnoxious in and of itself, but after about an hour you’ll be racing for the Mute button on your TV or emulator.  Regardless, a fine (if perhaps a bit too “cutesy” for some) mental challenge for all ages.

9. Fire ‘n Ice (NES, 1993): This game is a semi-sequel to Solomon’s Key, a cult-favorite arcade title from 1986 and one of the early third-party games for the NES.  Whereas Solomon’s Key was more of a platform-action title with elements of puzzle solving, in Fire ‘n Ice the puzzles are the primary focus.  In this game you guide the wizard Dana (the star of Solomon’s Key) through ice-filled caverns in which fires burn.  The idea is to use the ice blocks to put out all the fires on each screen.  This is done by kicking or dropping blocks on each fire; you can create new blocks under your feet, much like Solomon’s Key, but you cannot directly put out fires that way.  Blocks you create can be attached to existing blocks to create large ice floes you can use to climb up to higher platforms (you cannot jump in this game, so this is the only way you can get back up if you fall to a lower level).  You wouldn’t think so to read it, but this gameplay mechanic makes for some decidedly fiendish, fun-to-figure-out puzzles.  This is one of those “easy to pick up, hard to put down” NES cartridges, one you’ll find yourself coming back to again and again if you enjoy puzzles that require careful preplanning to solve.

8. Soko-Ban (Various): This game has had many incarnations and titles over the years - Soko-Ban, Boxxle (shown), Boxy Boy, Shove It!, and so on.  No matter what it’s called, the gameplay remains the same.  You’re a warehouse worker, and your task is to push heavy crates onto designated points.  Because the crates are so heavy, you can only push them, never pull; you also can only move one crate at a time.  It starts out dead simple, but rather quickly becomes very challenging.  It’s very easy to “box yourself in” and find yourself trapped with no way out but to reset the game, but with strategy it’s possible to beat every level in the game, even the ones that look at first to be completely impossible.  (In fact, the easier a particular screen looks, the more difficult it’s likely to be!)  While not as flashy or as funny as some of the other games on the list, Soko-Ban remains a supreme mental challenge (some of these puzzles could probably serve as a quick-and-dirty IQ test in a pinch), one that’s very hard to stop playing once you’ve grasped the concept.  And there’s nothing quite like that feeling of accomplishment when you’ve finally solved one of the harder boards…

7. Puzznic (Arcade - TurboGrafx16 port shown, 1990): This unusual tile-matching game looks like a top-down view, but you’re really viewing it from the side; gravity comes into play here.  In Puzznic, you have to slide tiles to the left or the right to match them up with other tiles; when two or more matching tiles connect horizontally or vertically, they disappear.  The goal, as you might expect, is to completely clear each board of tiles.  This creates a problem, however, as you must carefully decide which tile to move next; it is possible, and very easy, to accidentally clear an odd number of tiles, leaving you with “orphans” you cannot clear.  Oh, did I also mention you’re on the clock for each level?  Puzznic may be one of the more frustrating puzzlers you’ll ever play, but it’s also one of the most rewarding when you get good enough at it.  The original arcade game was actually something of a hentai (adult) deal, where for each board you cleared you were treated to more and more of a picture of a nude woman; for obvious reasons, none of the various home ports included this “feature” (though the TG16 version does give you some cute, fully-clothed anime girls as intermission screens).

6. Columns (Sega Genesis/Master System/Game Gear, 1990): Columns was Sega’s big attempt to cash in on the initial Tetris craze.  It ultimately failed to catch on to the level of the fabled Russian import, but Columns is still a pretty fun puzzle game taken strictly on its own merit.  In Columns you drop stacks of three colored gemstones into a pit, hoping to line up three or more of the same color in any straight line (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally).  You cannot rotate the stacks themselves, they only drop in columns (hence the title), but you can change the order of the gems within.  There are two main variations; one is the traditional “how long can you last” game, while the other, “Flash Columns,” tests you to see how long it’ll take you to remove the one flashing gem at the bottom of the screen.  You can choose different starting heights and the number of different gemstones to play with; more colors makes for an overall harder game, as you might expect.  Like the game that is its obvious inspiration, Columns is dangerously addictive (though a bit less so than others of this nature) and spawned a host of clones and play-alikes - some of which, as you’ll see, took the basic color-match concept and improved on it.  In fact, the next game on the list did just that…

5. Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (PSX, 1996): Never let it be said that Capcom doesn’t know how to make fun of its own clichés.  Even the title of this game is an indulgent self-parody; there is no “Puzzle Fighter I,” the title being a play on the many permutations of Street Fighter II over the years without actually incrementing the sequel number.  This cutesy puzzler takes four signature characters from the Street Fighter universe (Ryu, Ken, Chun Li, and Sakura), four from the Darkstalkers series (Morrigan, Felicia, Hsein-Ko, and Donovan), turns them all into SD caricatures of themselves, and has them battle it out with falling gemstones.  The goal is to create large connected chains of like-colored gems, then when a Crash Gem of the same color touches the chain, all of its gems shatter and reappear on the opponent’s playfield.  (Unlike Columns, gems do not disappear when matched; only Crash Gems will clear them out.)  The fun of Puzzle Fighter is in creating massive chain reactions with huge gems that are formed from clusters of the same color.  Depending on how many gems you break, your SD proxy performs a signature move on his or her opponent as they both act out a typical Capcom-fighter contest based on how the puzzle fight is going.

4. Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move (Arcade, 1994): Call it Puzzle Bobble (as the Japanese do) or call it Bust-a-Move (as us Yanks tend to), this bubble-popping game is a long-standing favorite for head-to-head play, and is probably one of the most cloned games this side of Tetris.  Puzzle Bobble, as the name might suggest, takes its cue from the classic Taito arcade game Bubble Bobble, at least as far as characters are concerned; the stars are the bubble-blowing dinosaur brothers Bub and Bob, and you’ll find your favorite Bubble Bobble baddies trapped in the bubbles.  Your goal is to shoot bubbles of different colors up into the clusters overhead, all the while as a piston is shoving everything down.  You lose if the bubbles cross the line directly over your head.  The cute (dare I say “bubbly?”) music and bright colors might indicate a kids’ game, but - as with so many other games in this genre - a combination of adult brainpower and quick reflexes are necessary to do well in this game.  There’s actually an Open Source clone of the game you can play - Frozen Bubble - that’s available for most computing platforms, and is almost as much fun as its more famous parent!

3. Klax (Arcade - TurboGrafx16 port shown, 1990): It may no longer be the Nineties, but there is still time for Klax.  One of those games that was only a moderate success in arcades but a big hit on home consoles, this game of catch-and-match has been captivating gamers for almost twenty years.  Reportedly inspired by that famous I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel are working in a candy factory and are forced to keep up with an ever-faster conveyor belt, Klax has you catching colored tiles coming towards you down a ramp, then dropping them into a 5×5 pit.  Matching three or more tiles of the same color in a row - vertically (easiest), horizontally, or diagonally (hardest) - clears them and earns you points.  Bonus points are awarded based on the type of “Klax” (match) you score, and there are secret bonuses galore for the more esoteric shapes (including the fabled “Secret X Warp” that bumps you forward 20 levels!).  In each level the Klax challenge is different; you may have to score a certain number of Klaxes, or a certain number of a specific kind of Klax, or reach a certain score, or just catch a total number of tiles.  For such a simple premise, the variety of Klax is nothing less than remarkable, and the challenge - particularly when the ramp speeds up and you need almost superhuman reflexes just to keep up the pace! - keeps players coming back for “just one more game” again and again.

2. Puyo Puyo (Sega Genesis, 1992): Ever played Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine?  Then you’ve played Puyo Puyo; Mean Bean Machine was an attempt to import the game using a Sonic license.  Regardless of the title or characters involved, the Puyo Puyo franchise remains one of the best head-to-head puzzle games ever invented; in fact, Puyo Puyo tournaments are still held every so often in Japan.  The object of Puyo Puyo is to connect four or more blobs of the same color (they don’t have to be in a straight line), sending penalty blobs over to your opponent’s board for especially large clearances.  The simple nature and fast action of Puyo Puyo is what keeps players coming back for more, and (unlike many other games of this type) even the single-player AI opponent isn’t totally brain-dead; the computer actually puts up a decent fight for once!  Always a favorite for two-player puzzle game action, Puyo Puyo is one of those games that can hook you to the point where you’re almost wishing for an IV and catheter just so you never have to run out in the middle of a spirited contest!  It’s that good.

1. Dr. Mario (NES, 1990): In its day, Dr. Mario was slightly controversial; there were some writers, even those within the game industry itself (i.e., not the Jack Thompsons of the world), that were worried the game might encourage little kids to play with pills.  Thankfully this was a short-lived issue, and Dr. Mario went on to become perhaps the most famous puzzle game to appear on the NES other than Tetris itself - and it some ways, it may have actually been the better game.  In Dr. Mario, you drop colored pills into a bottle that’s been infested by virii, hoping to clear them all out.  When four or more pill segments/virii of the same color are lined up (horizontally or vertically only; no diagonals), they disappear.  (You only get points if virii are included; lining up pills only will clear out space, but net you no score.)  This doesn’t sound like the formula for a particularly fun game, but Dr. Mario is extremely insidious in how it gets to you.  Once you start playing, it’s almost impossible to stop, in the grand tradition of Tetris; in this case, however, since there is a definite goal (at least in terms of the level you’re on), you become obsessed with proving that you can, in fact, beat that toughest board this time.  If you love Tetris, you’ll go crazy for Dr. Mario - and I say this even if you can’t stand Mario, as his involvement in the game is about as minimal as it gets!

Well, there’s my list, which is almost certainly going to be different from yours.  Was there a good one I missed, or is there something that doesn’t belong as high as it is?  That’s what the comment section is for, my friend!  Feel free to rake me over the burning embers below…

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4 Comments »

1. 
   Migo
   July 9, 2008 at 5:46 pm

   Thank you for finding a Puzzle Bobble clone. I’ve wasted so much of my life on that game and now you’ve enabled the junkie in me to go for one last fix…thanks a lot, jerk.

   [Reply]
   Devin de Gruyl Reply:
   July 9th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

   Heh… anytime. ^^v

   [Reply]

2. 
   Shawn M.
   July 9, 2008 at 8:38 pm

   I used to love the Adventure of Lolo series way back in the day. Beating the first one when I was all of 10 years old was a defining moment in my gaming career.

   Great article, as always. Of course, *nothing* beats Tetris, though.

   [Reply]
3. 
   Dandy
   July 25, 2008 at 12:08 pm

   Seriously? Not including MAGICAL DROP? You obviously haven’t played it — if you’re familiar with that Sailor Moon import nonsense, you must have at least seen Magical Drop at some point. Pretty sure the only US versions made are on Neo-Geo and the original GameBoy, but imports are available on Saturn, PSX, SNES, and probably more. At least find it on an emulator and try it…you’re sure to amend that list. Intense two-player versus mode and an incredibly addictive single player game. You can thank me later! : )

   [Reply]

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