As regular readers will know, cute games have had a long and chequered history. Fluffy bunny rabbits, cuddly hedgehogs and cheeky foxes have all come and gone. Never in the history of gaming, however, have so many cutesy animals come together for such a colossal clash of the cutesy titans.

Baku Baku is another spin on Puyo Puyo that requires layering of your tumbling blocks in order for disintegration-friendly patterns to form within your amassed pile. In this instance, you play Connect 4 with bananas, bamboo, bones and carrots, in the hope that a passing monkey, panda, dog or rabbit will fall out of the sky and munch a nice long time of them.

Which isn't as improbable as you might suppose. Unlike Tetris, where your aim is simply to clear your screen as efficiently as possible, Baku Baku sees you carefully time your gameplay so you amass as much junk as possible, then have it eaten as quickly as possible so a large part of it can then be offloaded onto your hapless opponent. The task is made easier by magic Baku Baku gold coins which dissolve all examples of the foodstuffs they land on, and harder by devious opponents with sharp timing. So, if I can tear Claire away from the cutest game of the year, here goes...

A fruit 'n veg version of Puyo Puyo, complete with a menagerie of cute critters. Destined for the arcades and the Saturn in 1996.

Enlist careful strategy and helpful hungry animals to clear your screen of tumbling blocks of food.

The chief protagonist in Baku Baku are a hungry pack of animals whose bouts of frenzied feeding rarely affect their high-scoring on the cute-ometer. A random assortment of creatures drop out of the sky, along with the tumbling blocks of food. If any of them 'connect' with a meal of their preferance then they'll happily munch away as many linking blocks as they can before disappearing off the screen.

Although not one of the 'hardest' of AM3's forthcoming Saturn titles, Baku Baku oozes a childish naivete that makes it difficult to ignore. Gameplay is cleverly pitched on several levels, meaning you and your opponents' chosen strategies dictate the difficulty of the game you're playing.

These factors combined make for a game that should appeal to grown-up puzzle buffs as much as it does to children. Even if the graphics are a bit too much, and the barf bucket certainly beckoned me on several occasions, you never lose sight of the solid, engrossing game underneath.

And if you're a fan of high-grade Japanese kitsch then you won't go far wrong either. Recommended.

The Japanese have a strange fetish for cute animals and fluffy bunnies, as does Claire, but when they are combined in a game like this I'm definitely not complaining.

This is absolutely brilliant. The graphics are well rendered and it's quite funny when you see the dogs and pandas come chomping down. It's equally as pleasing to watch your opponent's face when you've collected 60 bricks read yto drop all over him [Yeah, hilarious - Marcus]. The tunes are cutesy and annoying, but that is only to be expected.

It's painfully addictive and has already wasted hours of time in the Mean Machines office. Many more will be frittered away in the coming weeks. I think Marcus may have been a little harsh on this - it's excellent stuff.

Graphics 82%
P. Lots of shiny renders in Sega's virtual zoo of cutesies. Gratifyingly basic and clutter free.

Animation 80%
P. Smooth and detailed, the frenzied animal chomps are especially fun.

Music 30%
N. Cheesy kindergarten ditties that match the sugar-sweet graphics.

Effects 81%
P. Chomps and KOs are suitably crunchy and forceful.

Playability 83%
P. Engaging, engrossing and enjoyable gameplay.
N. Mastering the most productive technique may take a while.

Lastability 87%
P. Largely down to the quality of your opponent (and your kitsch threshold).
N. The game's partial reliance on luck may put some off long-term play.

Overall 84%
Too sugary for some, perhaps, but this is highly polished and devilishly addictive.