The new Puzzle Bobble game for Switch has a timed demo—you can play the online versus mode for free until June 30.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dj0fI8vx4U
[Tetris on a Chicken McNugget](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/05/finally-you-can-play-tetris-on-a-giant-chicken-nugget/), as God intended.
Taito ran an exhibition tournament for the new Puzzle Bobble with some speedrunners and other folk over the weekend, so check it if you want to see decently advanced versus play; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L_kFyJ0N_M 
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@“gsk”#p116844 Tetris THE ABSOLUTE The Grand Master 2 PLUS is coming to Arcade Archives (PS4/Switch) on June 1… at this rate, might we get TGM3 by the end of the year?
This is starting to roll out worldwide, expect it on your system in your region within 24 hours.
Interesting that it seems the old play of “throw a bunch of garbage on a branch and then pop it” doesn't seem to tbe the thing anymore? I wonder when that changed.
[edit:] that Poshi guy seems to be doing it, so I guess it's still a strategy.
I can only get as far as S3 in TGM1, but I'm still unreasonably excited about TGM2 coming soon! Mostly want that hard drop button.
I picked up the SNES Puzzle Bobble for Switch bc it was my fav growing up, and wow that port is interesting. The volume of everything is 3x louder than every other game on the Switch, the menus have the qualities of a Dreamcast boot disc, the Puzzle Bobble remix song that plays during the front end operation takes like a minute before it becomes recognizable (I thought it was a random demoscene song at first), and the there’s no save states??? There’s a CRT filter with a bunch of options and multiple screen sizes, but besides that, seems pretty lacking in features.
As for the SNES version itself, I never realized this but the level layouts are totally different on the SNES!! By the third stage, it introduces pieces with classic Bobble attacks (like lightening, fire, water, etc) while the original arcade game never does, I think? Also trips me up that the Confirm button on the SNES version is (bottom button/X on PS, I’ll be damned if I remember what it is on Nintendo/Xbox), while the default Switch one is (right button, O on PS). That leads to the brilliant situation where I pop out to the port’s front end menu (via holding start) and try to confirm an option choice but accidentally return to the game bc I pressed (back) in the context of the Switch, but (confirm) in the context of the SNES game ??????
Anyway, SNES puzzle bobble is great, love how crunchy the SFX sounds and the BGM is really accurate to the arcade, and the Bubblin Boys are cute as heck as smaller sprites.
SNES Bubble Bobble was handled by a Polish company called Ratalaika—they do virtually all of Strictly Limited Games/ININ's emulation-based projects, as well as self-published games, and they all have that same frontend and can be very hit-or-miss in terms of base emulation quality, feature set, technical oversights, etc.
They did the recent overseas version of the Ninja JaJaMaru-kun Collection, actually—for whatever reason, SLG didn't localize the JP collection but had Ratalaika do a whole separate version with all the same games, plus a few more (translated versions of JP-only RPGs, a new colorization of the Game Boy game, etc)... and it launched in an obviously broken state and AFAIK wasn't fixed and probably won't be because SLG's got 'em on the treadmill.
Next Tetris 99 collaboration event is for Pikmin 4. Huh, just realized they did not have one for TOTK.
https://youtu.be/bBPF48EFJRk
Out of nowhere, Nippon Ichi announced a brand-new versus puzzle game, and it‘s a full-price console game at that—it’s called Yumeiro Yuram and it‘ll be out for PS/Switch at the end of October; there’s also a demo due soon, and both the demo and the full game will offer cross-platform online multiplayer. The character designs are by Masayuki Furuya, designer/director of newer Nippon Ichi games like Void Terrarium and The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, and it seems they're going for straight cute on this one without any of the edge of those other games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfS026egWtM
After however-many months, Magical Drop VI finally got a Switch patch with all the fixes the PC version got within the first week, as well as some Switch-specific adjustments like being able to actually unlock all the unlockables and being able to see usernames written with non-English characters:
https://twitter.com/ForeverEntert/status/1685976178924933120
This was a discord game from day one, btw: putting aside whatever technical and/or design gripes people might've had, the matchmaking is so strictly subdivided by game type+mode+user region (which has to be changed manually in a top-level menu, which most players are evidently unaware of) that finding random games can be virtually impossible. This patch does add a global/auto setting but it doesn't necessarily seem to work all that well.
What’s been the feeling on Magical Drop 6? I recall hearing a lot of “wait and see” prerelease and then nothing
@“coffeentacos”#p126553 On a casual level, it‘s hard to say (as I don’t think this game got a lot of attention in general) but people seemed annoyed by the ridiculous hoops you have to jump through to unlock all the characters (playing one mode to hopefully make them appear in another mode to earn the chance of maybe getting them, with some of the modes being extremely punitive or luck-based). On a I‘ve-been-grinding-MD3-on-Fightcade-for-two-decades level, it’s not even adequate as a modern way of playing MD3 and it doesn‘t really offer any new ideas to compensate, and I’ll be shocked if any of the promised content updates are enough to win people over.
Puyo puyo chat:
OK so I just discovered that, instead of exclusively drilling chains in practice mode, I can just play against the easiest AI and ACTUALLY PLAY THE GAME. I had completely forgotten how fun the actual fighting gets, and the joy of scrambling together an improvised chain after receiving some garbage and just trashing the other player. Love this game. Who else is tryna improve their Puyo game? Let's goooooooo
@“giogadi”#p127669 I’ve been slowly picking away at it. It’s definitely taken a backseat to my course work though.
Taito‘s holding an offline Puzzle Bobble Everybubble tournament tomorrow @ MEGARAGE Mizonokuchi, which they’ll be streaming here from 13:30 Japan time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fd20YQbOQQ
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@“gsk”#p126503 Out of nowhere, Nippon Ichi announced a brand-new versus puzzle game, and it’s a full-price console game at that—it’s called Yumeiro Yuram and it’ll be out for PS/Switch at the end of October; there’s also a demo due soon, and both the demo and the full game will offer cross-platform online multiplayer. The character designs are by Masayuki Furuya, designer/director of newer Nippon Ichi games like Void Terrarium and The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, and it seems they’re going for straight cute on this one without any of the edge of those other games. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfS026egWtM
NIS just released a demo for this game in Japan—it has some offline content but the online multiplayer portion will only be playable until August 31, so I'd recommend grabbing and trying it ASAP, especially given that it's not a conventional versus puzzle game.
https://store.playstation.com/ja-jp/product/JP0404-CUSA43863_00-0512588138854856 🇯🇵
https://store-jp.nintendo.com/list/software/70010000061376.html 🇯🇵
The basic idea is that you're not just matching colours but forming specific shapes and attempting to fill the board with very specific configurations of pieces/shapes, which you can declare at will—the game straight up refers to them as yakuman, and it really does feel like a hanafuda/mahjong-esque game with a versus-puzzle veneer. I don't know how much longevity it'll have, or if it has any chance of hitting with a casual audience, but it's certainly intriguing.
The (untranslated) Super Famicom version of Kirby Star Stacker just got added to the international NSO app on Switch(—it‘s way too chain-happy to take seriously as a versus game but it’s not unfun, and it does hold up as a single-player game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDB_vr-0KJs
Several Japanese Puyo Puyo pros are hosting a big online tournament tomorrow, 13:00 JPT, and it‘ll have the biggest turnout I’ve seen for a non-PPT Puyo tournament in quite a while (246 & counting—they were aiming for 300 entrants and, due to a last-minute surge, hitting that number does seem possible):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WUfq4bl3FQ 🇯🇵
This looks interesting - it‘s a co-op 3D platformer/shooter inspired by action puzzle games like puyo. It should’ve been called “It Takes Tsu”, lol
https://youtu.be/6IhH1Vqb0sU?si=WipK_dArn9t6KUjo
I am interested in giving Cleopatra‘s Fortune a go. How steep is the learning curve? I’m not super well versed in the falling block puzzle genre, but in terms of difficulty curves, I‘d say my brain clicked with stuff like Dr. Mario, Tetris, Panel de Pon, and Columns immediately, while the one my brain has trouble with still is Puyo Puyo. Which end does Cleopatra’s Fortune fall under?
Forever Entertainment cancelled their physical release for Magical Drop VI, and considering how little they‘ve been talking about their announced content roadmap, other console ports, etc I wonder if they’re gonna bail on it altogether.
The online release of the second Puyoman flavour (matcha!) just launched—the release coincides with some anniversary promos that you might wanna take advantage of, so as to avoid overspending on mean beans: https://cohost.org/gosokkyu/post/2960560-btw-the-online-stor
@“HeavenlyHalberd”#p134269 I tried it for the first time recently and enjoyed it a lot. It is different to most of these games because you are creating boxes around stuff. It took some time to rewire my brain.