Purple-Clad Gamer Posted August 19, 2017 Share Posted August 19, 2017 (edited) Panel de Pon (SNES, 1995 (JP only) - Reviewed by Purple-Clad Gamer Edit: Sorry if some of the text placement looks weird, I typed this up on notepad beforehand Before we begin, here's how my reviews work: I rate each category on a scale from 0.0 to 10. Some categories will not be applied if necessary (ex. Level Design in a game like Dr. Mario) Categories:Introduction (not scored) - I start the review.Story - How well the story is written.Gameplay - How well does the game, well, PLAY? Are the controls good? Are the mechanics good?Characters - How well the characters are designed and how good they are as actual characters.Graphics - How well the game looks.Music - How good the game's music is.Difficulty - How well the difficulty is balanced-- is it challenging enough to keep you going?Level Design - How well are levels designed-- are they fun and interesting?Replay Value - Is it worth playing over and over? [Introduction] Panel de Pon is a puzzle game released exclusively in Japan in 1995 for the Super Famicom. It's known outside of Japan as "Tetris Attack", giving it a Yoshi's Island reskin, and is known to be a very good game that spawned the Panel de Pon series, which would be known as Puzzle League in the west. [Story] The only story in this game is within the game's 1-Player VS Mode, which might as well be a Story Mode. Panel de Pon's 1-Player VS Mode opens up with the game's mascot, Lip, explaining what's going on. The world has been invaded by monsters of darkness who have used magic to create an endless rainfall, putting the entire world at the brink of flooding. The monsters have also turned all the other faeries into servants of evil. Lip decides to stick up to restore her friends to normal and defeat the monsters within Death Mountain. Considering it's a puzzle game, It's a pretty good premise and has a few surprises at the end.9.4/10 [Gameplay] Gameplay in Panel de Pon is pretty simple. If you wait on the Title Screen, Lip will show you how to play, and the game even has some built-in tutorials that you can use in the form of the How to Play and How to Improve modes. In Panel de Pon, you play on a grid of squares, each of which can be filled by a panel (hence Panel de Pon). Panels are stacked on top of each other and slowly rise toward the top of the grid, with a new row of panels being added at the bottom. The player must swap panels in horizontal or vertical lines of three or more matching colors by swapping panels horizontally, in increments of two. As matching lines of panels are made, the panels are cleared from the grid and any blocks above them fall into the gaps. Clearing more than three panels in a single swap creates a Combo, while Chains are made when falling panels from one clear cause another clear. Both score extra bonus points, and in multiplayer VS matches, these also send what are called Garbage Blocks to the other player's grid. Garbage Blocks can be transformed into panels by making a panel clear that is touching the Garbage Block. You automatically lose once the panels (and/or Garbage Blocks) touch the top of the grid for too long (only about a second or two). The goal of Panel de Pon depends on the mode. In 1-Player VS Mode, the player controls Lip, the Fairy of Flowers, to fight off the monsters of darkness and return her friends to normal, in the form of 2-Player VS matches with Lip's opponent being controlled by the computer. Lip must confront each of her corrupted friends in the Fairy Worlds, and later the forces of darkness in Death Mountain. The goal is to defeat every opponent-- there are 10 stages on Easy Mode, 11 on Normal Mode, and 12 on Hard and Super Hard Mode. The only way you can fully complete the story is to beat 1-Player VS Mode on Hard or Super Hard. Easy allows you to get a feel for how legitimate matches feel like, with Normal getting tougher, and with Hard and Super Hard being a true test of your Panel de Pon skills. Endless Mode basically serves as a Practice mode, where you can set the speed level and the difficulty. It only ends once you lose or quit. Timed Mode is basically a Score Attack mode, where you try to rack up as many points as you can within 2 minutes. If you love shooting for high scores, you'll like this mode. In Stage Clear Mode, you go through 6 stages with 5 parts each and clear the panels until the white line appears. Once the white line appears, you have to get every panel beneath it. It gets very tense at times and is pretty fun. Lastly, the Puzzle Mode gives you a panel puzzle where you have to clear every panel in a set amount of moves. Panels do not rise in this mode. Panel de Pon's gameplay is extremely smooth and a ton of fun. The gameplay is absolutely perfect for what it does-- it can get pretty tense, especially in 1-Player VS Mode on Hard or Super Hard and Stage Clear. Every mode is always pretty fun (and frustrating at times) but I always get the urge to keep going.10/10 [Characters] First off, all of the characters look really good and very reminiscent of 90's anime. Every character feels unique in terms of design, and that creates a very good sense of variety by design standards. We don't exactly get much character development in Panel de Pon. The most that we know of the characters (sans the spoilers) is that Lip is cheerful, determined, and helpful. Yeah, granted, it's a puzzle game, so I probably shouldn't be asking for much. Regardless, it works fine given the fact that it's a puzzle game. 9.0/10 [Graphics] For SNES standards, Panel de Pon's art style and spritework are absolutely beautiful. I have nothing but praise for the graphical style used in this game.10/10 [Music] Panel de Pon's soundtrack is absolutely marvelous. I never get tired of listening to this game's music. In the middle of actual matches, every stage's music is really good, and when you're about to win or lose, that awesome music becomes tense awesome music, and I absolutely adore it. Without spoiling anything, my favorite pieces are Lip's Theme, Elias' Theme, Stage 11's Theme, and most of all, Stage 12's theme.10/10 [Difficulty] Panel de Pon's difficulty factors on the Game Mode you play and what difficulty you're playing on. In 1-Player VS Mode, Easy and Normal aren't that hard, except for Stage 11 on Normal. I had a pretty tough time with it my first time around. Hard Mode and Super Hard is basically a difficult test of your skills at Panel de Pon. It's tense and it's fun, but you're gonna need to practice... a LOT. Especially for Stage 12. Stage Clear Mode gets really intense towards the end-- I'd compare it to playing 1-Player VS Mode on Hard or Super Hard. Puzzle Mode really makes you think-- you'll likely spend a lot of time playing this mode to fully clear it. I have yet to play 2-Player VS Mode since I don't have any friends who play Panel de Pon, but from what I've seen, matchups like one elitist player and one above-average player-- the elitist can beat the above-average player in seconds, while 2 elitists can go at it for more than 5 minutes. Pretty crazy stuff. In terms of the difficulty's balance, it's a hit-or-miss situation. Puzzle games with a difficulty balance primarily factor on how good the player is, but from my experience with Panel de Pon, I'd say the balance was very suitable. In 1-Player VS Mode, the first 8 stages aren't that hard, but the last 4 can really give you a run for your money, as expected from final areas/levels in games in general.10/10 [Replay Value] Panel de Pon is bursting at the seams with content. Puzzle Mode will have you playing for a long time trying to solve them all, the 1-Player VS Mode is always fun to play, and there's always the Stage Clear Mode to keep you tense and looking for more. Panel de Pon is a game absolutely worth playing repeatedly-- It's a ton of fun and many other people who have played Tetris Attack and/or Panel de Pon can tell you the same thing.10/10 [Overall Rating] 9.8/10 Panel de Pon is a beautiful game that should be played by anyone looking to get into puzzle games or is just looking for a really fun game to try out that has a ton of content and replay value. Panel de Pon certainly delivers, and does not disappoint in the slightest. Edited August 19, 2017 by Purple-Clad Gamer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NinjaMonkey Posted August 20, 2017 Share Posted August 20, 2017 Why are you reviewing a game that came out more than twenty years ago? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eclipse Posted August 20, 2017 Share Posted August 20, 2017 1 minute ago, NinjaMonkey said: Why are you reviewing a game that came out more than twenty years ago? Why not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NinjaMonkey Posted August 20, 2017 Share Posted August 20, 2017 I could see the point if it was a game that just came out, or had been out for a couple of years and people wanted some sort of retrospective on it and if it's still as good as it was back then, but I feel that reviewing a game as old as this is, is rather pointless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purple-Clad Gamer Posted August 20, 2017 Author Share Posted August 20, 2017 I wanted to review it because, well, I wanted to share my thoughts and I really enjoy retro games. Is that a problem? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reality Posted August 20, 2017 Share Posted August 20, 2017 (edited) Nice review. Personally I think that the hostility to retro reviews is because people have gotten used to using "review" and "preview" interchangeably, just look at the content that IGN or youtube creators put out or you tube reviewers to understand why: As much as I like Tetris Attack, I don't know if I would rate it quite this highly. There were a few AI fixes later games like pokemon puzzle league (mostly noticable on higher difficulties) and I like some of its "fluff" like the puzzle mode, the so-so tutorial mode, etc. It always felt like a more complete game to me. Also as for competetive, I would say that 5 minutes rounds are very rare. 2-3 minutes is more typical. https://youtu.be/dh_3CaZWsTI I remember there were some tournaments back in the day that used default speed settings (Level 5) which allowed skilled players to survive for unnaturally long times against each other, since as you know, you can't die in Tetris Attack until all of your chains have resolved. regardless of the top of the screen being buried. I think this was when the online  romhacks were first made. Most tournaments in both Tetris attack and Pokemon puzzle League today (for the last 5 years really) set the speed level higher so that pieces "lock in" faster and games don't get drawn out.   Edited August 20, 2017 by Reality Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purple-Clad Gamer Posted August 20, 2017 Author Share Posted August 20, 2017 3 minutes ago, Reality said: Nice review. Personally I think that the hostility to retro reviews is because people have gotten used to using "review" and "preview" interchangeably, just look at the content that IGN or youtube creators put out or you tube reviewers to understand why: As much as I like Tetris Attack, I don't know if I would rate it quite this highly. There were a few AI fixes later games like pokemon puzzle league (mostly noticable on higher difficulties) and I like some of its "fluff" like the puzzle mode, the so-so tutorial mode, etc. It always felt like a more complete game to me. Also as for competetive, I would say that 5 minutes rounds are very rare. 2-3 minutes is more typical. https://youtu.be/dh_3CaZWsTI I remember there were some tournaments back in the day that used default speed settings (Level 5) which allowed skilled players to survive for unnaturally long times against each other, since as you know, you can't die in Tetris Attack until all of your chains have resolved. regardless of the top of the screen being buried. I think this was when the online  romhacks were first made. Most tournaments in both Tetris attack and Pokemon puzzle League today (for the last 5 years really) set the speed level higher so that pieces "lock in" faster and games don't get drawn out.   Thank you for reading! Pokemon Puzzle League is also a really good game (I still have yet to beat it on Very Hard, but again, it's Very Hard mode), I should review it once I complete it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zera Posted August 20, 2017 Share Posted August 20, 2017 Nice review. Now I know what Panel de Pon and Tetris Attack are. Although, I felt it necessary to skim the longplays of each game to see what they look like. The gameplay is seemingly simple enough that I think a video alone does it justice. The visuals and mode structure heavily remind me of other SNES puzzlers. Back in the day all the cool puzzle games were getting re-skins for international release. Compare - Panel de Pon VS Tetris AttackPuyo Puyo VS Dr. Eggman's Mean Bean Machine VS Kirby's AvalancheWario's Woods VS - oh wait, that's not a re-skin. It's almost weird that it isn't!  Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purple-Clad Gamer Posted August 21, 2017 Author Share Posted August 21, 2017 Thanks! I definitely prefer Panel de Pon over Tetris Attack, to be honest. Tetris Attack removed a few of the oh-so-glorious Panel de Pon tracks (like Tetris Attack's Stage 12 using Stage 11's music, which kinda pisses me off), and I wasn't a huge fan of the Yoshi's Island reskin. I first got into the series in 2014 with Pokemon Puzzle Challenge on the 3DS VC and I loved it. I ended up getting so addicted to it that I did a ton of research and found out that it's part of the Panel de Pon franchise and found out about the Panel de Pon GB Prototype ROM that was inside the game. I figured out how to access it, and played around with what little was there. Lip's theme really caught my attention and has made me a Panel de Pon fan, since I ended up trying the original Panel de Pon and ended up buying Pokemon Puzzle League just recently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrymidfields Posted August 21, 2017 Share Posted August 21, 2017 I used to really enjoy Pokémon Puzzle League. I mean, it was a rarity in that Ash, Misty, and Brock were there (fun times!) instead of the game characters, the gameplay was addicting in itself, not to mention the 3D-scrolling playfield, which allowed for near-infinite skill chains unlike the earlier versions. And you get to fight Mewtwo at the very end of VS mode. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purple-Clad Gamer Posted August 22, 2017 Author Share Posted August 22, 2017 I've never been a fan of the 3D playfield. Too tedious for my liking, but I'm sure plenty of people adore it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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