Magical Drop VI

I'm a big fan of these types of puzzle games, but Magical Drop IV's poorly implemented control scheme give the game an extra, unnecessary learning curve which makes it a drag. The game's controls are a throwback to the 1980's, where you use your right hand to move your character with the arrow keys and your left hand for the action keys. This would be fine if the action keys that the developer chose were chosen wisely, but they are not. You use the "S" button to bring your drops down to you and "X" to throw them upward. And "D" brings down another row of drops. it's an awkward control scheme, and there's no way to rebind any of the keys. Normally, I'd say that this game should be played with a controller, but another reviewer is complaining about the same thing... no ability to rebind controller buttons. I don't think that much thought was put into what I feel is one of the most important things in a game... good controls. With that said, the game is very colorful and its artwork is cute. And, the game's music suits it well. It's got potential. The developer has stated that he'd look into implementing the ability to rebind keys/buttons into the game, but that was in early 2023. At this point, I don't think that we're going to get it.

it is Magical Drop, so I had fun, but some of these extra things they put into the board game mode are a bit frustrating.

This game is really fun, it's similar to Bust A Move. I managed to pass several levels in the easy mode. However, after a number of attempts, the game seems to restart and I can't continue to the level I was. It's a pity, I'm not going to restart over and over again. By the way, it works on Linux with the Wine emulator.

I am very happy to have acquired this game at a bargain price. I had been craving a good puzzle game in the vein of Bust A Move or Puyo Puyo--I was unable to find the former in my preferred stores, and Puyo Puyo I found to be overpriced on Steam. This game, though, has scratched my puzzle game itch. I am new to this series and am writing this review after beating story mode for the first time on easy difficulty after 2h 20m in game (due to learning curve and failed attempts). The anime art style is crisp, and the music and sound effects are charming enough. I was reserved about the character art at first but through the dialogue in story mode found the overall direction to be cute. Nia nia nia says Fool. Gameplay I have found to be fun and roughly on par with Bust A Move and Puyo Puyo, although it is a bit different. Instead of blocks coming down and stacking at the bottom like in Tetris and Puyo Puyo, there are no 'falling blocks', and rows accrete from the top towards the bottom. It's up to the player to take colored balls from the bottom row and shoot them back up to match 3+. One crucial difference with other match 3 games is that you can press a button to make the rows come down faster. (I wish I had known this when facing Black Pierrot.) Some newbies have expressed frustration about certain aspects. The game does not explain itself well in gameplay. You have to watch the tutorial, which is kind of slow. RNG, especially for clearing balls of one color in a time limit, can make you lose. The difficulty is uneven such that I lost to my first opponent many times. There is no save and continue. After losing 2 or 3 times to the same opponent, you have to start over. This isn't really an issue for me, since a story mode run is only 30 minutes. I have unlocked the opponents I've beaten in story mode as enemies for match mode. I can't wait to play more to discover how to unlock them as playable characters instead of as enemies. I like, I recommend.