Pieces

"Putting together a jigsaw puzzle... now in 16-bit!"

The Puzzle genre has been around since games were made; however, it's not common to see one based on jigsaw puzzles rather than some kind of falling blocks. At first glance it might seem like it would be too simple and get boring quickly. This is not the case with Pieces though, since it manages to stay interesting for some time, at least provided you have someone to play it with. The single player mode pits you against wacky cpu opponents that get increasingly harder, but never hard enough to become frustrating. Beating the game doesn't take long as the game is somewhat short. There is also a two player vs. mode for competing against friends.

The gameplay itself consists of picking up one of the three available puzzle pieces and setting them in the right position, and each round has both you and your opponent trying to complete three puzzles first. There is a twist, however, which is the power meter. Each time you correctly place a piece, you get more power, with placing the piece faster giving you more power. Building up power gives you access to power-ups which are either helpful to you, such as the item Auto, which automatically places pieces in the correct spot, or for sabotaging your opponent, like the broom, which sweeps away every other piece on your opponents puzzle.

While the vs. mode allows two players to race to complete pictures, the ‘All-Play' mode is more of a competitive co-op mode, allowing up to five players to work together or compete to form a picture, with each player scoring individual points for putting pieces in the correct place or losing points for placing them wrong. The pictures in this mode are larger than the puzzles in the other two modes, so they usually take longer to complete. There is also an occasional bonus round where players must spot differences between two pictures.

The controls are simple enough, although having to hold down the Y button to move the cursor faster and using the A button to grab and place pieces can get tiring. The game does support the SNES Mouse, and it works well enough to use it. The puzzles themselves can also get somewhat repetitive, and once you know them, the game becomes quite easy to beat. The music is nothing special, but is nice to have in the background while building your puzzle; however the graphics are vibrant, and the puzzles themselves usually look quite nice.

Overall, the game is good, but too short, and not enough puzzles to keep you coming back to play it again. It's not a game for everyone, but those who are interested in it may find a surprisingly fun game to play for a while. The game is unique in that it hasn't really been done before, or after; at least not an entire game about it.
I'd recommend it to those who want a fun multiplayer puzzle game to pass the time with.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/26/07, Updated 11/18/09

Game Release: Pieces (US, December 1994)