Columns Crown

Sega?s old jewel-matching answer to Tetris gets the Game Boy revival, with a cool two-player battle mode and some sort of story about a missing crown or something.

Whether you need to kill five minutes alone in an airport or five hours together with a GBA-ownin? cousin with a bizarre puzzle game fetish, the latest edition of Sega?s Answer to Tetris fits the bill perfectly. While Columns Crown still features the old drop ?til you drop Columns gameplay, the addition of an extended two-player mode and a vast assortment of collectible enemy-trouncing Power Jewels give it a big bonus edge. Oh, apparently there?s a story or something, too, but whatever?the ?plot? is just an excuse to put little anime characters in the sidelines for decoration.

Watch out, though, because the game is hard as hell?almost ridiculously so, since things start moving at hyper-speed extremely quickly; when you finally get your hands on one of those power jewels, you feel as though you?ve really earned it. And while it?s well-nigh impossible to have a puzzle game with particularly mind-blowing graphics, Columns does what it can: The cartoon characters add personality (especially the weird members of the ?thieves? guild? you battle), and the jewels are big so that you don?t hurt your eyes too badly. The ability to choose a different set of jewels would have been nice (even the Game Gear version enabled you to pick stuff like dice or Lucky Charms marshmallows to spice things up), though that?s only a minor flaw in what?s otherwise a gem of a GBA puzzle game.

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