Mezase! Senkyu Ou [めざせ！戦球王] Game Sample - Playstation

Senkyu, known outside Japan as "Battle Balls" (which Senkyu or "Senkyuu" literally stands for), is a fun puzzle game developed by Seibu Kaihatsu in 1995. It was later ported to Playstation in 1996 under the name "Mezase! Senkyu Ou" and was reprinted three years later in 1999 at the low price of 1,500 yen. The game is your standard drop/junk puzzler, but with a twist: You drop pairs of three round balls which can be rotated more than your standard puzzler and which fall into little apertures. Because of this setup and because the objects you're dropping are, indeed, ROUND, they slide around if not stacked a certain way and is the primary difference from other puzzlers. The Japanese game features certain graphics, dialogue, and character bios that was removed from the overseas version. The game features your typical versus mode as well as solo-playing and versus CPU, but instead of relying on static backgrounds, the game introduces a variety of characters with quirky animations that are great to look at and a slight twist to how junk is handled in the game. The basic idea is to match at least four of the same color together to make eliminations and rain junk on your opponent, but the junk in this game devours active balls, which must be freed by making eliminations next to said captured balls. Eliminating (or attempting to make an elimination) with junk on your field can sometimes backfire as some of your balls will get eaten, but it's not as bad as it sounds; junk is rained on the player in a certain fashion (usually with a variety of like-color balls), and if you can free your orbs, you can often expect to make a powerful counterattack on your opponent, so haste is not always the best strategy. For a game developed by one of the mac daddy's of the Japanese-style SHMUP, this game is an addictive and surprisingly well-made title for beginners and pros alike with a theme that the company is not typically known for (cutesy and comical). Well, they're not the only company to go from shooters to the occasional puzzler -- Taoplan created Teki Paki (the "Brainwashing Puzzle Game"), a pretty good puzzle game in its own right, and there are others out there as well. Given the relative ease in creating puzzle games, most developers have likely tried their hand at the genre in one form or another. Anyway, this is a video of the PSX game in action. Enjoy.