Pnickies

The Good
The gameplay is very unique. Not a Puyo-Puyo clone, but a really good variant. There are so many ways you can mould and vanish the stacks as they descend. One of the blocks glows as the pair falls, so you can tell which block rotates the other. You can rotate the blocks clockwise and counter clockwise as you please. The game also implements a Tetris element consisting of living gray blocks for some additional challenge. And whenever a friend joins you in the middle of a single player game, nothing interrupts the gameplay.

The artwork for the angel and devil is both cute and beautiful. It’s like looking at Anime-styled Neo-renaissance artworks. And the borders that make up the layout are like picture frames for a finishing polish. And to go with those visuals are a few decent music tracks.

The Bad
What the game has to offer is just about all it has to offer. There aren’t enough game modes to make it stand out from other Tetris inspired games. As beautiful as the art is, it is kind of wasted here because the characters never interact with each other and there are no cutscenes or plot to give the game some flavour. This isn’t really your typical good versus evil game, which is good, but more characters, music tracks and art would have been desirable.

Nothing really spoils the game, but the controls lack a button to make the blocks fall instantly. Most Tetris-like games have that. And those blocks with their bright primary colors feel kind of out of place from the rest of the artwork. Perhaps colours in ochre, orange, aqua and purple would have been a lot more gentle on the screen.

The Bottom Line
What a strange title. Enough to pique your curiosity. It’s too bad the game got left and confined to arcade machines in Japan with not even a port. If the game did see more releases, it would have been the opportunity to expand and make more of it. It might even have made the ideal time passer on the Super Famicom. You couldn’t ask for more than a beautiful, simple work of arcade art on a home console, if you’re competitive, please give this one the love and attention it deserves by racking and stacking the high score to the best of your ability. Please let this one come to the Arcade Archives.