Game:

Puyo Puyo 2 (1994)

Duration: 15:19

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I sometimes wonder how me and my brother ever find out about these games... Halloween Kingdom is a well-made, free puzzle game made back in 2009 that was also a part of Japan's 2nd Fukuoka Game Contest (where it won one of the highest awards). It combines stylish graphics, cute and quirky characters, a neat little story with a nice opening intro and ending, and a few basic modes with a functional engine. A cool promotional video (Crazy Pumpkin) was later made for the game that merged 3D graphics, anime, and real life together to get the message of "Halloween Kingdom" around, but it's still not well-known.

The story revolves around Riria S. Harouza, the royal princess of the "King of Devils". Living in the magical "Halloween Kingdom" where everything goes bump in the night, she lives a peaceful life with ghosts, mummies, Satan, and all the other demons of the land. Being a spoiled demon princess, she has become rather lazy and carefree, reluctant to do anything other than eat sweets all day and have fun (though it's worth noting that she is very talented and powerful when she is rarely serious).

However, one day, a mysterious disturbance threathens the land and evil spirits are turning once-peaceful monsters into violent fiends who must be stopped to maintain the peace. Unfortunately, Riria doesn't really care... that is, until almost all the sweets in the land are taken away by the bad guys. Now along with her childhood friend, Aiby Earnest, and the guidance of their mentor and lord of the vampires, Hargen Toupe (Prime Minister of Halloween Kingdom), Riria reluctantly goes on a journey to get to the bottom of the land's problems.

The game has six primary characters and two boss characters, and each character has their own special powers. The main objective of the game is to shuffle through objects and match four or more, but they must be matched in a square/rectangle formation. When you do so, the field will replace the missing objects and more will fall in, which is one way to create chains. The other, more practical way to make chains, is to have an idea of your next destination and quickly head there to make an elimination. You see, this game gives you a small window of opportunity in the form of a few seconds to find the next objects to eliminate, and the higher the number, the more junk you'll send to your opponent (junk can be eliminated if it's touching objects within elimination) and the more special power you'll gain. Characters lose depending on who's better off when time runs out or if you deplete your opponent's health with attacks and specials.

The characters' special abilites vary, but none of them are to be underestimated. For instance, Riria uses her love of sweets and combines it with her partner's power (Pappun, who is her talking pumpkin hat) to inflict raw damage on her opponent. Each character has three levels of special attacks; they become more potent the higher the level... Riria's attack is so powerful that it instantly KOs an opponent at full power. Hargen's ability takes a fair bit of damage (and heals him a bit) but has the added benefit of slowing down time, making it harder for you to build chains and otherwise fend off attacks. Another character, Koza, has REALLY powerful cheap attacks that not only hurt you bad, but heal her for all the damage she took AND you're completely defenseless for a few seconds. The catch to her ability is that it's based on probability and she has to blast the exact space you're standing on, so she's a wild card (her attack can often deal no damage at all).

This video goes from the intro to the first two opponents. You can get this game at:

http://www.halloween-kingdom.net/download/

Enjoy.

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