Baku Baku

"Yawn... Another Tetris clone... wait... It's good, you say?"

In my opinion, video games may be broken up into two main categories: games and rip-offs. A good game brings new additions to the genre, with original gameplay mechanics, good graphics, a great overall layout with tons of info, and a great experience to boot.
Rip-offs, obviously, are the opposite. All of what happens in the game is ripped off of other games, the graphics are blocky, the levels are uninspiring, and you feel ticked off after you throw the controller against the wall when your character can't jump.
Baku Baku is in the ''game'' category.
Baku Baku (sometimes referred to Baku Baku Animal), at first, seems like a Tetris or a Puyo Puyo clone; pieces fall from the top of the screen, and you, as the player, must match them. Matching blocks combine and disappear, and the ones on top the matched ones fall down. Combos can be made, which, in turn, gives ''junk'' pieces to the opponent. The one whose screen fills to the top of the screen with pieces first loses.
''Tetris, Puyo Puyo, Baku Baku. What's the difference?'' You ask.
''BB'' is different in a few ways. There are ten different blocks than can fall from the sky; five animals and five of their favorite foods. There's a monkey piece, and, respectively, a banana piece. A panda block and a bamboo block. A dog and a bone, a rabbit and a carrot, and a mouse with cheese. When, say, the dog and the bone, go together, the dog eats the bone, or the line of bones, if one chooses to lay out their blocks that way. That's how people make combos; animals may be eating fruits simultaneously. And the rest goes from there. In Story mode, you play as a zookeeper who must defeat the animals to become King of the Zoo.
Graphics? Not really much here. A puzzle game doesn't really require great graphics; gameplay counts. Not to say that what's there isn't bad; all of the animals and their favorites are easily recognizeable in full-screen mode. The munching effects when the animals eat are cool.
Audio... hmm... we've run into a dead-end. In the PC version of Baku Baku, the sounds are merely .wav's and .mid's. They are faintly played in the background, and the only noticeable sound is when you make a combo ''W'haa!''
Replay? There are many different ways to play Baku Baku, and one will want to play this for a bit. Once you become King of the Zoo, there isn't much to do, though; not many people had the Internet when this came out, and I doubt any one would play over modem, let alone have the ability to find this anywhere.
Anyway, pick it up if you get the chance... though it's pretty hard to dig all the way to the bottom of the bargain bin.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/01, Updated 03/06/01