Game:

Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (1993)

Duration: 0:00

45 views

1

I take a look at the last two official 8-bit Sonic games, both of which are Western exclusives that take inspiration from the American cartoons of the day in their character designs and plot elements.

First is Sonic Spinball on the Master System. It's a fun and unique adventure pinball game with platformer elements, which benefits greatly from the expanded screen size compared to the Game Gear. This 8-bit version has level design distinct from its Mega Drive counterpart, and unfortunately some cutbacks too. Luckily I also found it easier, and managed to clear the game in about an hour. Along the way I found parts of a secret code, and looked up what it did afterwards thanks to The Cutting Room Floor.

Since it didn't take too long, I then booted up Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, a localised version of Puyo Puyo. This one doesn't have as much of a boost from Master System screen size, but it does have something the Mega Drive version doesn't: a puzzle mode taken from Nazo Puyo! I played through the first ten levels of the thirty available, then did a few stages of the Scenario mode (the single player story mode against opponents, in this case Robotnik's robots from one of the cartoons). I'm not great at this falling block puzzler, so I quit before I got too deep but had a nice enough time with it.


Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/miloscatter