Magical Drop
Magical Drop is a series of puzzle games first released in the arcade, and later primarily for several platforms such as the Neo Geo Arcade, Super Famicom, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Bandai WonderSwan, GBC and the Neo Geo Pocket Color; most of which were published by Data East.
A stack of random colored bubbles descend from the top, and a player is defeated when a bubble hits the bottom. Bubbles can be picked up and dropped by the player's clown at the bottom, and are destroyed when three or more of the same color are put together on a single column. Chains are formed either when a single drop caused a chain reaction, or when more than one group of bubbles is destroyed in quick succession. The game is normally played with two players (one may be a computer opponent), and chains cause the opponent's stack to descend faster.
There are 24 characters, all but the Black Pierrot being named after a tarot card (although the Strength card has been represented by two characters throughout the series). Different characters have different attack patterns. The columns of the opponent's stack will descend at different rates relative to each other depending on the character chosen. This causes a disjunction of colors that may make it more difficult for the other player to clear their stack. For example, with the character Devil, all the columns will descend at the same rate, whereas with Sun, the middle columns will descend faster than the others.
The first game in the series, first released to arcades in 1995. It features Fool, Magician, High Priestess, Chariot, Devil, and Star as playable characters. It features a single-player mode, where the player battles each playable character before taking on World in one final encounter, as well as a two-player multiplayer mode. The game received an updated version named Magical Drop Plus 1!, which adds a Solo Play mode that challenges players to obtain a high score without having to battle an AI opponent. Magical Drop Plus 1! was released in English as Chain Reaction.
Magical Drop was ported to the Super Famicom, which includes a puzzle mode that challenges players to solve preset puzzles given a limited number of possible moves. The game was re-imagined for the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn with different, pre-rendered characters. Finally, a port of the game is part of Magical Drop III + Wonderful; this includes the PAL version of III + Wonderful, which retains the Magical Drop Plus 1! name as opposed to using Chain Reaction.
How to play:
Click on the joystick icon in the Magical Drop online emulator to see how to control the Magical Drop game
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