Magical Drop (マジカルドロップ) Japanese series of puzzle games commercial.
0Magical Drop (マジカルドロップ, Majikaru Doroppu), sometimes referred to in Japanese as MagiDro (マジドロ), 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.
Magical Drop is based on a game called Drop-Drop created by Russ Ltd, a Russian company.
In 1995, Data East released the first game in the series as a coin-operated version of this game titled Magical Drop (known in North America as Chain Reaction). Despite the arcade game being released worldwide while using the English title in North America and Europe, Data East gave the official English names of its successors the same names as their Japanese counterparts, while the home versions of the first game were never released outside Japan. The series became better known for its Neo Geo sequels, Magical Drop II and Magical Drop III, due to the popularity of the Neo Geo platform. The last games in the series released in the United States were Magical Drop Pocket for the Neo Geo Pocket Color in 1999 and Magical Drop for the Game Boy Color in 2000.
G-mode bought and currently now owns the intellectual rights to the Magical Drop franchise along with several other of Data East's franchises and titles.[3] While Data East declared bankruptcy in 2003, other publishers have re-released the PlayStation titles Magical Drop 3 + Wonderful and Magical Drop F. Magical Drop II and Magical Drop III are also available on the subscription service GameTap. In 2007, the Super Famicom version of the first Magical Drop title was released in Japan on the Virtual Console for the Wii by G-mode. In 2009, versions of Magical Drop for Android phones and iPhone were released in May and September, respectively.
Magical Drop II was released on the Virtual Console by G-mode in May 25, 2010. The same year, Magical Drop III was included as part of Data East Arcade Classics and released on the Virtual Console in Japan on July 6. UTV Ignition Entertainment published a new sequel, Magical Drop V. Handled by the French developer Golgoth Studio, the game was released for PC on November 15, 2012. Another sequel by Forever Entertainment is scheduled to be released on Nintendo Switch in winter 2022.
『マジカルドロップ』は、データイーストが制作したアクションパズルゲームである。業務用コンピューターゲーム、家庭用テレビゲーム専用機、携帯電話で提供されるゲームに多数移植されている。1995年にアーケード版が登場、その後シリーズを重ねた。略称はマジドロ。
ロシアのRUSS社が1992年にMS-DOS用にリリースした『DROP-DROP』というゲームが原案である。2作目まではRUSS社からライセンス許諾を受けて開発され、タイトル画面にもRUSS社の名前がクレジットされている。しかし『DROP-DROP』はたとえば連鎖の概念がないなど、基本的な要素を除き本作とは別物となっていたことから、3作目以降はデータイーストが版権を吸収している。