Best puzzle games nobody talks about?

[mbd30]

It's also fun to try to beat all four opponents in the tournament mode. The last opponent is tough.

[NE146]

I say MIght and Magic Clash of Heroes. ok while this isn't a pure "puzzle" game.. it's a puzzle-battle/rpg game much like Puzzle Quest is. Except while puzzle quest is based a "Bejeweled" type, Clash of Heroes is sort of like "Columns" where you have to mix and match like colors of your armies to form attack and defense formations. I dunno.. I had fun with it.

 

Gameplay example:(skip to 2m 7s)

 

As for real puzzle games.. I'd say the LOLO series.. but everyone knows about those. Maybe Moai Kun on the NES

 

[icemanxp300]

Since my last reply I played one game and had 9 perfects in a row then I had to combo break lines on level 10. I did that through round 13, no more perfects after 9 lol, dumb misclicks and stuff. This score was 472,760.

 

This game is addicting. Thanks a lot!

[Tanooki]

Randomly going to just throw out some stuff, people can go find videos if they need to.

- Panic Bomber

- Magical Drop 2 or 3

- Wetrix

- Puzzle de Pon

- Money Idol Exchanger

- Zookeeper

 

Most of that are MVS(Neo Geo) arcade games, though the bottom started as a successful flash game gone onto Nintendo DS, and the top one was ported all over including to the Virtual Boy and the TG16 CD format.

[BillyHW]

I was also going to mention Chips Challenge and Moai Kun (but I had forgotten the name, thanks for posting it).

[electricmastro]

Cool puzzle ball game for the PS1:

 

 

[+jgkspsx]

On 2/17/2017 at 9:26 PM, Eltigro said:

One that I had a lot of fun with, that NO ONE talks about is a Tetris clone type of game called Funky Beans that was a demo game or whatever on a Playstation Underground disc. When you clear a couple pieces, it says, "Yee haw".

 

And apparently most of the videos of it on Youtube suck.

 

 

I LOVED THIS!

 

Here are some of my favorites:

 

Hexcite takes some getting used to, but once you understand the systems it’s incredible. I have rarely played a game as vicious and bloodthirsty as this. You spend half the game desperately searching for the edge that will let you in the end game laugh mirthlessly through cold eyes as your opponent sinks further and further into the negative point range.

 

 

This was made as a physical board game but quickly went out of print. I suspect it caused too many murders for the authorities to permit continued sales.

 

Ishido is the exact opposite, a game of sometimes mild excitement and sometimes mild chagrin, but mostly it wants you to calm down and live better.

 

Usually playing video games before bedtime is a bad idea for me but this one is a wonderful wind down.

 

Puzzled is an entirely forgotten GBC puzzle game as publishers realized that Game Boy puzzlers were no longer guaranteed sales successes. It is SO FRUSTRATING but it really stretches your brain and I like it way more than many “disappearing floor” puzzlers. 
 

 

Here’s a game that kind of sucks but does so in a fascinating way. Developed by Rebellion, yes the people behind some of the Jaguar’s best games (AvP and Skyhammer), Klustar is the lowest budget crap imaginable, with a hilarious public domain soundtrack (“When Johnny Comes Marching Home”, “Where the Buffalo Roam”, and other popular favorites) and really unfair game overs a plenty. And yet the omnidirectional Tetris gameplay is strangely

compelling and it’s easy to watch the hours disappear while you listen to awful music.

 

 

You know who thought it was a good enough idea to abjectly steal? That’s right, 2006 Nintendo. Tetris DS is bursting with amazing alternative ways to play Tetris, but the Klustar remake is my favorite among them.

 

The Game Gear has some stellar puzzlers, but let me call out several way underexposed ones:

 

Shikinjou (also on Game Boy) is an amazing fusion of box pusher and mahjong solitaire. Very addictive.

 

 

Magical Puzzle Popils is a true exclusive, kind of similar to the top tier Game Boy puzzler Catrap but really doing its own thing:

 

And then there’s Factory Panic, another (I think) true exclusive:

 

This started off as a much more politically charged game, Ganbare Gorby!!, starring a dedicated Soviet administrator with a prominent forehead birthmark valiantly fighting off the old guard Communist forces of stasis and repression to bring good consumer goods like food and boots to the Russian people. Yes, it’s a pro-Gorbachev propaganda game, and I am, as the kids say, here for it.

 

Finally let me tell you about two awesome PC Engine puzzle games that got US Turbografx ports:

 

Tricky Kick is a simple matching puzzler where you have to kick matching enemies into each other. It gets surprisingly hairy in a hurry.

 

 

Then there’s Chew Man Fu, known in Japan by the more generic but less racially insensitive name of Be Ball, which is a really hectic and addictive ball-rolling/ball-chucking puzzler with really vivid and huge sprites:

 

It has 550 (!!!!) stages and an edit mode if you want to make more, as well as a two player kickball game. Shame about the US name, because it should be much better known than it is.

[youxia]

Dharma Doujou, my latest favourite.

 

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=mE6R10zLDcs

Edited September 6, 2021 by youxia

[Reaperman]

The wife an I are fans of Puzzle De Pon on Neo Geo.

 

IIRC it's generally slower paced than the puzzle bobble titles. The pieces don't drop with the timer, and all that has to happen is the releasing of a gem symbol, so it's got a lot better pick-up-and-play potential than most other neo puzzlers. Two brand new players can go at it without anything really feeling unfair.

 

The magical drop games, on the other hand, move so fast that they don't even feel like puzzler games. They're fun to watch, but my brain can't track them.

 

I haven't tried Puzzle De Pon R, but I suppose now that I have a flash cart, I should really give it a go.

 

 

Edited September 6, 2021 by Reaperman

[Tanooki]

Popils on the Game Gear is awesome, I had it in the past, a fantastic game.

 

Also while not official, over 10-15 years ago, someone did in fact convert the entire arcade game of Bust-A-Move (Puzzle Bobble) to GBA, it's a worthy one to check out.

[Parker77]

To this day, I don't think there's a better puzzle game that Puzzle Bobble 2. Later games in the series were overly complex with too many added bits that took away from the purity of this version. Still never managed the 1CC, but one day.....

[Tanooki]

18 hours ago, Parker77 said:

To this day, I don't think there's a better puzzle game that Puzzle Bobble 2. Later games in the series were overly complex with too many added bits that took away from the purity of this version. Still never managed the 1CC, but one day.....

I couldn't agree more, but I still have a love of the original, partly driven by the fact it is but not predictable since there's no branching path, but also that addictive as hell theme played on every stage.  They knew what they were up to, as bad as the crack addict level bubble bobble theme.

[electricmastro]

20 hours ago, Parker77 said:

To this day, I don't think there's a better puzzle game that Puzzle Bobble 2. Later games in the series were overly complex with too many added bits that took away from the purity of this version. Still never managed the 1CC, but one day.....

Alternatively, that might be The Incredible Machine:

 

 

[Cynicaster]

Devil Dice on PS1 is pretty cool.  Damn hard but if you stick with it long enough to get a feel for it, it's pretty addictive.  

 

 

 

[Hakogame 箱亀]

Nontan to isshou: kurukuru puzzle for gameboy is pretty good. It was developed by gamefreak and later ported to the super famicom, but I prefer the gameboy version.

 

Here's a video:

 

[electricmastro]

1 hour ago, Raccoon Lad said:

Nontan to isshou: kurukuru puzzle for gameboy is pretty good. It was developed by gamefreak and later ported to the super famicom, but I prefer the gameboy version.

 

Here's a video:

 

Quirky puzzle game.

[+wongojack]

Does 3d Tic Tac Toe count?  That game seems to get sh!+ all over, but I find it very challenging and fun.

 

How about Picross games?  Mario's Picross has several iterations on handheld platforms and they are quite fun.

 

Another -  I had never played Wario's Woods until the NES Remix came along.  I liked it enough that I played the original for quite a while too.

[Tanooki]

As a side note Pixel Puzzle Collection on mobile from Konami is totally FREE... it's Picross with 8/16bit famicom/sfc/arcade sprites and images.  Picross (nonograms) been around for awhile but I think Nintendo really was the one that popularized it enough for more companies to care.

 

Also totally agree Wario's Woods is fantastic.  I found that one long ago on a cart early into buying second hand in 1995/96 and it's awesome, cool it was the last NES title, shame it got overlooked there and on SNES.  I think it would have made a truly fine Gameboy title.

[+jgkspsx]

5 hours ago, Tanooki said:

As a side note Pixel Puzzle Collection on mobile from Konami is totally FREE... it's Picross with 8/16bit famicom/sfc/arcade sprites and images.  Picross (nonograms) been around for awhile but I think Nintendo really was the one that popularized it enough for more companies to care.

Nintendo’s mainline picross games (not the Mario ones, the DSi ones forward) are so boring after a while, though. I need something more than flowerpots, frying pans, and beautiful sunsets to satisfy my picross needs. I loved the Twilight Princess Picross (which Nintendo bizarrely refused to sell to anybody!) to death, and I 100% cleared the Overlord one despite not knowing or caring anything about the anime. I just need some kind of plot.

 

One amazing recent entry that I don’t think I have seen mentioned on here is Murder by Numbers. It’s a lot like Professor Layton except all the puzzles are nonograms.

 

[Tanooki]

Now you see I could buy that completely.  F professor layton and that illogical headache mess of a set of puzzles that mensa level migraine has.  Now this, using picross patterns to move the story along I'm all up for that.  They're still challenging, but they're fun and not commonly utterly obtuse.

[electricmastro]

 

[+jgkspsx]

Even though that looks legitimately fun the M&Ms characters disturb me too much to go near that. Even Ronald McDonald is tolerable by comparison.

[electricmastro]

1 hour ago, jgkspsx said:

Even though that looks legitimately fun the M&Ms characters disturb me too much to go near that. Even Ronald McDonald is tolerable by comparison.

Well, Frame Studios Interactive also made an earlier game without the M&M's advertising. lol

 

 

[electricmastro]

 

[+jgkspsx]

On 9/10/2021 at 5:28 PM, Tanooki said:

As a side note Pixel Puzzle Collection on mobile from Konami is totally FREE... it's Picross with 8/16bit famicom/sfc/arcade sprites and images.  Picross (nonograms) been around for awhile but I think Nintendo really was the one that popularized it enough for more companies to care.

Oh my God I wish I had never heard of this. Each puzzle is currently 0.2% of the total library. That means 500 total puzzles. (Maybe not counting boss puzzles.)

 

I am up to 19% this week alone.

 

They are not the best puzzles - lots of symmetric ones and some very boring ones (ALL of the zodiac signs from Nemesis, for instance). They’re in general very easy - my average time is about two and a half minutes between the 10x10 and the 15x15 puzzles.

 

While I’m looking this gift horse in the mouth, it is weird that they randomly play music per puzzle. It’s outright disorienting to be working on a Gradius puzzle with Bloody Tears on, or a Tokimeki Memorial puzzle with A Shooting Star for background.