Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine

"A unique and fun puzzle game"

Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is a puzzle game where players have to match colored blobs. Have four colored blobs that match, and, presto! They disappear! You have to keep doing this over and over, testing out new combonations and such.

Most people do not realize the connection between this game, Kirby's Avalanche, (available on the SNES) and the Japanese import Super Puyo Puyo. They are all the same game, except that Kirby's Avalanche and this game are basically stripped down versions of the real thing, Super Puyo Puyo.

Which is an unfortunate thing (at least for me); I was a hardcore Super Puyo Puyo gamer years back. That game had many, many options, all of which were great.

To come to Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine years later (knowing the same puzzle engine was utilized), I was disappointed. There's not much here to the crazy Puyo Puyo fans. But, for newcomers, there's plenty.

And it DOES have the same wonderful puzzle engine. Playing with another person is always a hoot.

For example, just now, I was playing with my sister and dad. We played quite a lot... perhaps too much. Time went by fastly in four hours. When I realized what the time was, it was quite shocking. This is one of the few games that has made my family sit down, play and laugh over for that long of a time. Sometimes a minor puzzle game that isn't well known is just the thing needed to keep the family together, at least for a couple hours. (Haha.)

The simple, yet colorful graphics are perfect. The expressions on the ''blobs'' (the things you connect) are nicely detailed yet they do not detract nor distract the experience. The background of the action is mainly a solid wall of rock, so you can concentrate on what's going on.

The music sounds like it came out of the future with the N64 game F-Zero X. Fast rock with plently of guitar solos. And, trust me, it doesn't sound as bad as you may think. It actually fits it pretty well.

The controls are perfectly perfect for a puzzle game. Any button flips the two blobs while falling down to the bottom. You use the D-Pad to help you move through the air. That's about it.

The gameplay, is of course, the mainstay here. It's a great puzzle game, like Tetris (boring old Tetris), but with a couple nice twists here and there.

So, since it's now available on the Gamecube as part of the Sonic Mega Collection, it's obviously much more available than Kirby's Avalanche. Pick up the wonderful collection of games Sega has put out there for you and enjoy!

GRAPHICS: 6/10
MUSIC/SOUND: 8/10
CONTROL: 10/10
GAMEPLAY: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/09/03, Updated 03/09/03