Future Publishing
17th August 2008
And the new CPC games keep on coming. Does the CPC need another variant on the Tetris/Columns theme, or is this game different enough to stand on its own?
Magical Drop
The first thing that strikes you is the well-drawn loading screen, which looks influenced by Japanese anime. The game comes on both disk and tape plus in English and Spanish. There's even a tape inlay done for the game. Now that's attention to detail.
The menu screen displays the game options: redefine keys, joystick control, one or two player games and difficulty settings are shown. It's here where you will hear the theme music, which is okay, but can get repetitive.
As soon as you see the main playing screen you might think of Ocean's cartridge game Pang. Although here you don't shoot the balls, you grab similar groups of coloured balls into your tractor gun by pressing fire button one. By pressing fire button two you can shoot them back into the grid against other similar balls to form a group. The group explodes and you score points based on the number of balls in that group. All the while the rows of balls are gradually dropping down. If the balls drop down onto you it's game over.
The game can be played with either joystick or keyboard. The latter can be redefined to suit your preferred layout. The graphics aren't too bad for this type of game: they're colourful and well animated. The anime style images are well done and add character to the game. The sound effects are adequate.
With three difficulty settings, the game provides a great challenge and if you get bored with that, there's the two player option to battle it out with a mate. In fact the two player mode may well have saved the game from a short term gaming experience as the one player game may prove tiresome after a while.
Second Opinion
I can't tell if I like this game or not. The graphics are an eye opener and the gameplay is addictive. I guess that the question mark hangs over the lastability.
First Day Target Score
Level 5.
Verdict
Graphics 89%
P. Great anime style images.
P. Plenty of colour.
Sound 68%
P. Okay music / sound effects.
Grab Factor 84%
P. Anime style graphics certainly grab your attention.
Staying Power 74%
P. One player game may be limited but there's always the two player option.
Overall 80%
It's good that the CPC still gets great new games after all these years, and this is one of them.
Screenshots
