Baku Baku Animal (Saturn) Playthrough
129A playthrough of Sega's 1996 puzzle game for the Sega Saturn, Baku Baku Animal: World Zookeeper Contest.
Here are some timestamps for your convenience:
Arcade mode as Polly
(The opponents you face change for each of the arcade mode's three paths)
4:35 Beginner
9:26 Normal
33:20 Expert
57:26 Ranking mode (endless)
1:15:48 Arcade mode as Gon, Normal
(Gon can be played with the second controller, and he has his own ending.)
1:39:25 Baku Baku Hall of Fame and Movie Viewer
To the uninitiated, the vertically-split playing field, kid-friendly story, "cute" character designs, prerendered CG graphics, and hyperactive music all might make Baku Baku Animal appear to be little more than another obnoxiously loud Tetris clone. But, if you were disregard Baku Baku Animal based on that impression alone, you'd be dismissing one of the best 90s arcade puzzlers ever made.
It has a lot of fun sass, and the core gameplay is simple, intuitive, and novel, which is always a winning combination when it comes to this style of game.
The closest analog I can think of to describe Baku Baku's gameplay is Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo, which came out right around the same time. However, instead of gems, this Sega title has you dropping animals and food. "Baku baku" is a Japanese onomatopoeia that represents the sound of someone shoveling food into their face, after all.
The idea is to stack the food in as large of clumps as possible, and when you're ready to blow the stack, you place an animal block next to its preferred type of food. As the animal scarfs down the food down, random blocks will rain down on your opponent, and the player whose board fills up first is the loser.
Like I said, super simple, but remember that it this was a Sega arcade game, meaning that it tends to become brutally difficult as you work your way up the rungs of the story mode. The last time I remember a puzzler making me work this hard was when I got into Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. Anyone else remember the difficulty level there? This is about the same. Decimating your opponents with chain combos is insanely addictive, though, so no matter how much it might infuriate you, you'll keep coming back for more.
Magazines raved over both the Saturn and Game Gear versions back in the day. I had the Windows 95 version, and I absolutely loved it, though the Saturn version was much better. Oddly enough, the GG version of the game is the only one that features a translation of the arcade game's Japanese dialogue sequences. Those scenes are completely missing from the English-language CD versions of the game.
Baku Baku Animal wears its age like a neon sign on its sleeve, but make no mistake - it sits right alongside Puzzle Fighter and Tetris Attack as one of the best puzzle games of the mid/late 90s.
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