But when Sega developed a Mega Drive port, only a handful of Tetris cartridges ever made it to store shelves before the company shelved it. There was no official statement from Sega as to why, but there are a couple theories. Either way, the Mega Drive version of Tetris was never mass-produced and is one of the rarest cartridges for the system today.
The game was quickly ported to DOS, Macintosh, and Atari ST by other programmers, but somewhere around the time of the Tetris debacle, Sega swooped in and bought the license. They then wasted no time in putting Columns in arcade cabinets worldwide and on all their consoles, including the Master System and the brand-new Game Gear. There are six colors in all: red, orange, green, blue, yellow, and purple.
In order to do this consistently, you rotate the gems in the columns to place them next to gems of the same color. Combos are achieved when two or more series of gems disappear, one after the other.
Columns on the Mega Drive is nearly arcade perfect and features several modes not found in the arcade, including Flash Columns where you eliminate gems in order to get to the flashing jewel at the bottom of the screen, and Doubles, a two-player co-op mode where each player has a turn in controlling a column.
Unlike Tetris , where your focus is on how the falling shape connects with the shapes below, Columns asks you to align a vertical stack of three colored gems alongside other stacks of colored gems as quickly as possible. Figuring out which color should be placed where, then rotating the column if need be is considerably more challenging than placing a straight line next to a square.
The latter was a phenomenon because, like the best casual games, everyone from children to the elderly could understand and enjoy it within minutes. Tetris is fun, addictive, and most importantly, simple. Columns has potential to be fun and addictive, but the mechanics take some time to digest.
By the time you understand the basics and advance to higher levels, the speed becomes overwhelming. Only those with the sharpest of reflexes will even want to hone their skills. Columns might lack the pick-up-and-playability of Tetris , but I doubt Sega cared much.
This 8-bit port of Columns sacrifices graphical fidelity and speed for a tamer experience. Was it necessary for the sprites to be shrunk to the size of a pebble, though? To wit: by level 3, I was still holding my own.
While the Doubles option has been excised, all the other Options — Flash Columns, 2-Player, and Versus — are still here. In the menu, you can switch out the gems for blocks, dice, or even fruit. Just make sure to bring your reading glasses along for the small sprites. Not because the Game Gear version is the best version, but because puzzle games and portable systems just work together, like chips and salsa.
The Two-Player option has been removed and you can only play a Versus mode with the Gear-to-Gear cable. No one in their right mind would bust out a Game Gear just to play Columns today, but in ? You betcha. Even on a smaller screen, Columns is still B-tier puzzling.
Not fun for me. The grey background on the Game Gear version? Clearly it takes place on the surface of the Death Star. If the crystals represent all the thousands of activities of daily life in the ancient city, it becomes emotional and heart-breaking.
Just look at all these countless hopes and dreams that all these people are struggling through! Look at all their hours of hard labor. Is any of it worth it? This particular day in the city will be great for some folks but not for others. So many dreams and aspirations, each with its own struggle!
There is also something profound about seeing each jewel as symbolic of a separate little part of life. We know that every single effort will not be successful — some of our efforts will be unsuccessful — yet we are still considering each experience as a jewel. When all is said and done, life seems best defined by its best moments, its best crystallized memories, even if those peak experiences might vanish quickly, leaving us alone with the empty, starry sky.
Can any other puzzle game lead to such reflections, or such emotions that make us tear up, for so many ancient people struggling through another hard day in the marketplace? The answer is no. There is no comparable version of Columns, let alone any comparable puzzle game. Two-player versus mode should be a guaranteed good time, if two friends, two Game Gears, two Columns carts, and a link cable ever happen to pile up in the same area.
We can also always choose to start at an advanced level, instead of starting at level zero I never choose to do so, because I enjoy the flow of the gameplay, as it is. Blocks are probably the best alternative, because then the game looks like an extremely colorful version of Tetris. Most folks might not realize that this option is actually for changing the number of gems. In all these cases, the sixth object is a nice extra color, added to an already-colorful game, and this is reason enough to stick with HARD mode.
The sixth gem suddenly makes the well seem too small, crowded, and claustrophobic. The HARD setting is more chaotic and remains a healthy challenge. We can also choose which of the three pipe organ songs to enjoy, identified only as A, B, and C probably because of the limited screen-size. On the Master System, the songs are never named at all, strangely enough, as the music just goes along with the modes of gameplay chosen. But fans of Genesis Columns will recognize the soundtrack as the same exact songs, just in simplified form.
While these songs probably have nothing to do with Greek mythology beyond their names, I do appreciate that the names might prompt us to look into it, just to see what they mean.
All the music is great, and the first song Clotho is the most familiar and most classic. In directly comparing these songs to their bit counterparts, I actually prefer the 8-bit versions, which sound softer, warmer, and more emotionally-moving while the bit versions sound sharper, more complex, and more realistic.
Arguably the definitive version of Columns, we can almost hear the waves lapping in the ancient Mediterranean, feel the sun on our skin, and breathe in the cool freshwater breeze. With beautiful imagery even printed on the cartridge and box, Columns is a gem that belongs in every Game Gear collection. Discuss this review in our forum.
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Leave a Comment Click here to cancel reply. Find an Article. If you get more than 3 and those colors are touching like colors nearby, those will dissapear too. There is even a special piexe that comes down, kind of looks like a lightning bolt to me, that once put down will change for you to pick a color to wipe out every one of that color on the board.
Like Tetris it gets faster and faster the higher your level is, and also like Tetris if you get to the top of the screen without anywhere for the pieces to fit falling from the top of the screen, game over.
To me this game was actually an early version of Bejeweled, without all the fancy bells and whistles that became Bejeweled. It is only a couple of bucks here on eBay so if you do happen to have a Game Gear I would say it's worth a shot, it is a lot of fun.
Something to do during those idle moments in life Make sure you bring spare batteries though, becasue as you probably know, the Game Gear will drain them faster than you can say, "Seeeggaaaa!
I bought this game because I was looking for a quick paced, critical thinking game that could rival Tetris. I found it with this game. This also was on almost every single top list of Game Gear Games and being a recent first-time owner of a Game Gear, I was willing to get advice from just about anywhere.
Columns works because it is not a knockoff and it is more thought provoking and nerve wrecking than Tetris. If you're up for a unique challenge, This is the way to go. Not as good as Tetris but if your looking for another puzzle game to keep you addicted, then this is for you!
Verified purchase: Yes Condition: Pre-owned. This game brings back memories I like how it came with game gears.
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