With five new additions to Nintendo Switch Online's catalogue of NES and SNES games arriving today, we decided to review these new/old releases to help you decide which to play first. Enjoy!
Magical Drop is Data East's take on the competitive puzzle game, but with a major twist - instead of falling blocks, like Tetris or Puyo Puyo, you control little characters at the bottom of the screen that grab and toss coloured balloons that drop from the top of the screen. Grab, toss, and match three (or more) in a row vertically, and they'll disappear, as well as popping any other adjacent balloons of the same colour.
The remaining balloons will fall upwards, potentially matching up more colours and creating a combo. This will cause more balloons to show up on your opponent's screen, with the overall goal being to overwhelm them. If you'd rather not play competitively there are two single player modes - one just presents an enormous playing field and continues until balloons appear too quickly to deal with, while the other presents simple puzzles that you need to solve within a time limit.
Each of the characters are based on a tarot card, and while their sprites are tiny at the bottom of the screen, their playing field also has an enormous animated background portrait that celebrates when you're doing well and cowers when you're doing poorly. There's a lot of personality in the characters here, and the game is infamous for the bouncy World and Empress characters.
Magical Drop II originated on the Neo Geo, and this Super Famicom port is a pretty solid conversion. Some of the animations are missing, but it still looks fantastic for a 16-bit console game. The arcade game also used a generic jester character to represent the player, while the SFC version uses the chosen character themselves. Other changes are fairly minor, like some extra characters being unlocked from the outset.
The arcade game also had a Puyo Puyo-style Story mode where super deformed versions of the characters faced off before each map, though they were strangely silent. Here, they actually exchange some brief dialogue. The other notable change is that the playing field has been reduced from seven balloons in width down to six, due to the lower resolution of the SNES. There are also a few more game types available in the versus mode.
Magical Drop II is pretty good, but it's still not quite as attractive looking as the Neo Geo original, which is available via the Arcade Archives range on the Switch. Also available is Magical Drop III, generally agreed to be the best game in the series, which has a larger character roster, an expanded game board-style story mode, and other improvements. Most of these additions make this predecessor redundant... although having it on the Nintendo Switch Online service is convenient for those who enjoy (or want to try) Magical Drop without plunking down the cash for it. It's still a solid title overall.
The SFC version of Magical Drop II was initially Japanese only, but this version is fully in English. The translation is different from the one featured on Retro-Bit's Data East Classics Collection for the SNES released back in 2018, so it's believed the version featured on the NSO was originally a prototype created to pitch for an English release, but was ultimately cancelled. It's certainly cool to see this released, just from a preservation perspective.
Comments 15
The game series responsible for my choice in screen name.
I still fire up MD3 from time to time.
Is this mini-review meant to imply that the latest NSO selection might have relevant games...?
But so many comments have told me otherwise, you see.
Not as good or as fun as Puzzle Bobble (Bust-a-Move).
The SNES online puzzle games have all been bangers.
MD3 is superior for sure, but MD2 might serve as an entry for a very good game series that is not as famous as Puzzle Bobble or Puyo Puyo!
Gave this a shot right away. Had the games on my wishlist for a while so I couldn't let this chance pass!
Definitly a fun game with a great presentation, can't even imagine this be the 'inferior' one. Really tempted now to see what more MD3 has to offer.
Really cool to see to more previously Japan-only games arrive on NSO in the west, especially with a full translation like this. Are you going to review that newly added NES (well, Famicom) game as well?
I have the 3rd game on ACA Neo Geo. It’s fun. I might look into this.
So it would seem the Aeon Genesis translation is better as it doesn't touch the Japanese voices, on a cutesy game like this that's a pro.
Of course, one is already on the Switch and the other is locked behind a repro cart.
Never played or heard of this...sounds fun.
For the "I've never heard of it... BAD!" brigade when new SNES games drop for the Switch... this is why that's not the right perspective. This looks fun! I don't know it! That's good! I'll probably tinker with this for a few hours and have a great time... paying not one cent more than my Online Subscription price. Great!
But some people are committed to disappointment...
Got this Evercade, it is a fantastic puzzle game
Magical Drop II and III were delisted in some regions, people are saying you can still grab a copy in the US eShop (by browsing through the Switch itself). Be warned.
Absolutely loved both this and MD3.
I think I like this game more than I should but it's a very zoney game like I sit down to play for like 10 minutes and then I look at the clock and it's been 3 hours
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