"Teenie-Weenie-Beanies"

Hello and welcome. This review will focus on all the main areas of puzzle fun. Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is an addictive and best of all simple puzzler game about…beans! Though it ranks pretty close to my favorite puzzler, there are few difficulty problems that could've easily been fixed, but it ultimately leads to one question: Did someone bother to test out this game Sega?

Story 8/10
Well, it gets points for being pretty important with the game play, and for having a story in the first place. Welcome to Robonik's latest invention; his Bean Machine, capable of turning the folks of Beansville, which are, not oddly, beans, into robots to do his bidding, and to get rid of the joy and fun in Beansville! Only one thing's missing; the beans! The robots that are working for Robotnik (ones from the Sonic comics, in case you are familiar with Archies' Comic work) will have to align the beans in a special way in a dark dungeon (which happens to be the playing field) to send to Robotnik! You, however, will be in a similar dungeon, and have to send the beans back to their homes, and let the other robot's dungeon overload with beans. Destroy all of Robontik's robots and you win!

Controls 9/10
Just use the B button to tilt the falling beans right, and the A button to tilt left. Use the control pad to move the two beans. Simpler than ever.

Gameplay 10/10
In practice mode, you basically have to make at least four beans of the same color touch each other in a playing field as they fall from the top of the screen' two, which are stuck together, will come down at a time. You can rotate them and put them wherever you want. Beans will not float in mid-air, however; they need support by other beans, so if a bean is not being held up by a row underneath, it will drop down until it hits a bean to be stacked onto that row. Trying to make chain reactions and larger bean gatherings is key to getting a high score. Remember, the beans get faster and faster. The game is over when the beans reach the top of the playing field.

In the real gameplay, however, you must face off hoards of robots of Robotnik's. The rules are the same as practice. The robot in the playing field of a level is trying to clear beans too. Only, you have to make the robots mess up and fill his playing field with beans to the brim. How? Simple: make the same bean alignments you did in practice. You see, with each 4 beans you clear, you send a “refugee bean” to the other robot' field. These are clear and can only be cleared when you make a bean alignment that's touching them. The more alignments you make in a row (let's say you make 3 of them, while the robot still has yet to make another alignment; that's what “in a row” means), the more amounts of refugee beans will start falling into the robot's field. Again, making combos and chain reactions are ways to greatly help you win, as they will drop plenty of refugee beans on the robot's side. Just remember, the robot can send refugee beans to you too by clearing beans to make you mess up, so make your decisions fast! You can check on your progress by looking at the robot's face; if he lookes scared, you're winning! If he has on a casual face, you're both doing pretty well so far; but if he looks happy, you're losing, and better start moving fast if you want to turn him neutral again. Once you get the robot to fill his field to the brim with beans, he will be defeated. Write down the password and go on to the next robot!

Don't forget that you can go head to head with a friend in that option—the rules are the same as the paragraph mentioned above, only you're playing with people, and not robots. ;P.

Other Modes 4/10
The reason it's a 4 is because there are few options to keep a one player interested. There's the main game, and practice mode for one players. You can customize the difficulty settings of the main game in the options, but that's all. Two players can simply play head-to-head. No time attack, or any special modes…

Difficulty/Balanced Difficulty Curve 2/10
This is another flaw which you'll be able to notice almost straight away. Even in practice mode, even on easiest, the game speeds up so fast, even the person with the fastest brain and reflexes in the world will easily be caught off-guard. This contradicts the meaning of the word practice; you're supposed to keep playing until the game keeps on gradually speeding up, then eventually speeds down, then speeds up, and continues that pattern. In this one, there's a limit to how much you can play the easiest mode, as it starts off as simple fun, but after about two minutes, with no warning, the blocks start to drop really fast. You can overcome this, but not very easily, so you must have plenty of practice on that mode. Again, there's no point to playing practice if you have to actually practice to play it.

One other sign is the main game. Most of the robots you face have completely mastered the game. On normal, the second level is almost literally impossible! While playing on easiest, I noticed that it took many tries to beat this purple guy, while it took me 2 to beat the next guy, some TNT, who apparently is out of practice. Something's wrong here.

Replayability 10/10
Despite there being a scary learning curve, and major lack of modes, you can try to master both 1-player modes. When you do, you can always customize your options to make it slightly harder each time you play. The fact that the robots are rather hard and will take many tries will keep you coming back for more. And of course, if you're ever bored, invite a friend to play this game. The immense satisfaction for creaming them 10 times will get you laughing every time. :D

Overall: Buy or Borrow
If you have a Genesis, then borrow it from a friend, or buy from your local used VG shop. If you have a GameCube, PS2, or XBOX, get it on Sonic Mega Collection.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/03/06