Tag: featured

Pieces was developed by Prism Kikaku, a company which would later change names to Nippon Icchi and gain much greater acclaim in subsequent gaming generations with games like Disgaea. Honestly, I like this much more than their later work for which they’re much more famous.

Pieces is an extremely simple game. There are a few game modes, but in each of them you solve jigsaw puzzles competitively. The pictures represented in these puzzles span a few different “genres,” like buildings, dinosaurs, sports, and more. There’s a decent amount of variety, and we’ve played it quite a bit recently without getting exhausted from repeats.

In the versus mode, each player tries to solve a set number of puzzles faster than their opponent.

This might not sound thrilling, but Tiff and I played one round of this mode and knew we were going to like this game. You might think this would come down to how much you enjoy puzzles, but I’m not a big fan of them in real life. This game separate itself from that a little bit; for one thing, the addition of items creates another layer that helps me get into it. These items can really impact the board; some sweep pieces off of your opponents puzzle while others automatically place pieces on your own side, for example.

The way the power meter fills incentivizes you to place your pieces even faster. It adds a frenetic element to the gameplay, not to mention interactivity, that would be lacking in a straight up jigsaw competition. Tiff, Alex and I played a few rounds of one versus one with the loser passing their controller. I would love to play a four player free-for-all version of this or even two player teams.

We’ve spent most of our time on the “All Play” mode, though, even with two people. In this mode, up to 5 players all compete to get the most points over 8 puzzles + two bonus ‘spot the difference’ rounds. There are only three pictures for these bonus rounds (that we’ve seen) but the differences between them change each time.

This mode is further divided into four different variations that change the time limit (between 3 and 8 minutes) with two that add “fake” pieces to the reserve. We mostly stick to the mode that’s 5 minutes with no fake pieces, at least so far.

What Did They Think at the Time?

Pieces was well-received by critics at the time. However, it is pretty apparently most critics didn’t spend much time with the 3+ player modes.

GamePro wasn’t impressed with the sound (which I agree with) or the controls (which I don’t), but gave it a 4.5 overall and appreciated that it set itself apart from the deluge of Tetris and Columns clones that flooded the market:

EGM gave the game good scores and shouts out the versus mode specifically – which is arguably the highlight of the game – but no mention of the 5-player mode. It is a short blurb, to be fair:

What Do We Think Now?

The ultimate scores in contemporaneous reviews of Pieces I could find weren’t far off from our assessment overall. But all of the reviews are pretty lacking in terms of accurately relating to the reader what the heck the multiplayer mode looks like! GamePro actually says this 5-player game is only 2-player. EGM doesn’t actually say that, but sort of gives that impression by way of omission. Next Generation at least notes that the game uses the multitap, so it has to get points for that.

I played the single player game and enjoyed that pretty well, though the computer opponents start to get tough after the first two. I think it would take a long time to beat the game on the hardest difficulty, and I probably will try to work my way through it, at least for a while. That’s not a focus for us, but it does speak well to the game.

Especially since the versus mode is exactly the single player mode, but against a human opponent. It’s great fun, as you can tell by the fact I like to play it even against the computer. I rarely play single player games except to test them out for multiplayer gaming; this one really sucked me in, and I need to emphasize again, I do not normally like jigsaw puzzles. I even intend to play Jigsaw Madness (PS1) which is another jigsaw puzzle game from Nippon Icchi and maybe sort-of (?) spiritual successor to this game.

We’ve only had a chance to play the multiplayer mode with 3 players. Finishing the puzzles with 3 was easier than with 2, and I’m sure that would scale. What I’m less sure about is how this would impact the ‘spot the difference’ bonus rounds, which were sort of a problem for our group at both 2 and 3. Each difference you spot is worth a significant amount of points, and with only 2 or 3 people, it was easy for one player to clean up these rounds and almost make the main puzzle rounds feel irrelevant. I think runaway leader problem would be less likely in a game with 4 or 5, but I can’t confirm that yet.

It would have been nice to have more going on in the multiplayer mode. Everyone is working on the same puzzle, so there are no items. There are certain pieces that have a ‘roulette’ effect where you have a chance to gain some points or lose some points, but that doesn’t match up to the depth and interactivity items brought in the versus mode. Still, we had a fun time with this one, and I’m looking forward to playing it with 4 and 5. Our scores (in fairies instead of thumbs):

Not everyone will love this one to pieces, but Pieces is worth a shot if your game group is at all interested in puzzle games.

Firestriker surprised me. On the surface, the idea of using Breakout-style gameplay in an action-adventure setting didn’t seem like it would work for me. I’m not a huge fan of Zelda games, a comparison I’ve seen a couple times, and Breakout is at best okay. But I was wrong! The addition of different kinds of enemies and objectives really adds some depth and complexity to the basic Breakout formula. And it isn’t an action-adventure or Legend of Zelda-style game at all; those elements are basically aesthetic.

The single-player mode is definitely a spin on Breakout; I believe I’ve seen that it was marketed as a pinball game and that’s off the mark. Most levels follow the basic structure of trying to break bricks on the opposite side while making sure the “Trialight” doesn’t go through your own side. Firestriker adds a few elements on top of this that make it a lot more interesting, though. Your ‘paddle’ is a person and he has a lifebar now, because the different boards have different enemies and obstacles to avoid (while still juggling the basic challenge from Breakout). There are also a few levels that add different objectives to fulfill, like finding the key to go through the door or destroying all enemies of a specific type. Some maps require you to use specific characters that you unlock throughout the game.

The two player co-op is just the single player game except what would be the ‘blocker’ you control with the L and R buttons is replaced by a second player. I like this because it actually makes the game more challenging and makes it feel like a true cooperative experience. You need to communicate and coordinate your actions in a way that transforms the gaming experience entirely even though the basic mechanics are exactly the same.

There’s also a ‘Multi Mode’ game option for up to four players. There are several maps that come in two different ‘flavors.’ The first is like hockey or soccer where two teams try to score with the “Trialight” (the ball you use to score in the game). The second is comparable to Sugoi Hebereke or Super Smash Bros where players try to knock each other off of platforms in various different stages with different brick-breaking elements which are sort of neat and unique. Tiff and I played a little of each and it was pretty fun for a few minutes even just 1v1.

What Did They Think at the Time?

Well, this little blurb from EGM is very close to a concise summary of what I just wrote:

Interestingly, EGM2 also reviewed this and gave it an even higher score:

Game Players had mostly good things to say and called it ‘unexpectedly fun,’ which I certainly agree with, but only gave it 69%:

What Do We Think Now?

Overall, I have to say that the contemporaneous reviews I could find for Firestriker more or less nailed it in terms of what they said. But their scores don’t exactly align with what mine would be even though we don’t have any huge substantive disagreements for the most part.

That’s interesting to think about and explore. Something that probably hurt it at the time, but doesn’t really factor into my assessment at all, is the length. The graphics definitely aren’t technically impressive for the standards of 1994, especially when you consider the next generation of gaming systems had arrived (though the 3DO and the Jaguar are hardly the best examples of the fifth generation) but who cares? They’re serviceable, which I mean as a compliment.

Game Players in particular also just has some dumb categories.

My hunch is that what really drives this difference, though, is the way they are getting to their number score. Now, mathematically, they obviously aren’t taking their score in each category and then using the average to come to their overall score — both EGM2 and Game Players rate it higher overall than those ‘fundamental’s would imply. But I’m not interested in looking at the constituent parts of the game like that at all, really. The sound and graphics must have dragged it down in aggregate.

Anyway! Enough discursions. The ‘campaign’ mode in both single-player and co-op is just solid fun, and might not rate as a hidden gem alone. Tiff and I didn’t quite beat the game on our very first try, but we got very close. It will only take a few hours for most people to see the end screen. We were glued to the task the whole time we were playing, though. Even when one of us died we were actively engaged in trying to help and cheer on the other player.

But where the game goes from good to great is in the multiplayer party mode. There are about 10 different maps in this mode, though some of them repeat with minor variations (mostly block placement). Most maps have a soccer/hockey/traditional Breakout objective of putting a ball into a goal, but a few are more of a free for all battle mode where the objective is to knock everyone else off the platform and be the last man standing. We only played with three players, but I’m sure it would be even better with four.

In my view, this game deserves to be mentioned alongside the great party games on the Super Nintendo like Super Bomberman, NBA Jam, and Micro Machines. To be fair, this checks a lot of boxes for me. I’m much more likely to play two player or multiplayer games than single player games. Firestriker gives us a fun version of both. But it doesn’t fit neatly into a niche; the co-op mode is, for my money, a lot more fun than I’ve ever had playing through the Super Bomberman games cooperatively. The very justifiable reaction to that is, “who cares about co-op in games like Bomberman?” I hope to review all 5 of the Super Bomberman games on Super Nintendo (well, Super Famicom) eventually, so I won’t belabor it here, but that series benefits from repeated iterations. In a head-to-head comparison between their 4-player modes, Firestrikers is probably just a notch below.

Still, even if it doesn’t strike a fire under you the way it has for me, this game has a lot to offer and it’s definitely worth checking out if you can ever play in-person with one or more friends.