Columns III (Genesis) review "Gem and the Hieroglyphics"

Trying to decipher Sega's business decisions is like trying to win the lottery; it's never going to happen. Case in point: Sega went all in on making the original Columns its premiere puzzle title for the Sega Genesis and Game Gear, to the point it ended up being released multiple times in pack-ins, compilations, and price-reduced reprints. With Columns II already in Japanese arcades as the first game was making its console and portable waves, it was guaranteed that the sequel would get a home treatment too, right?

Fast forward a few years later, and the Sega Genesis finally got its followup to Columns with... Columns III.

Yes, not only did Sega skip the first arcade sequel, which was Japanese-exclusive at the time, but they had the audacity to give this home-exclusive game a roman numeral three.

That aside, the third game returns with the original's core gameplay still intact. As a tile-matching puzzler, vertical columns descend from the top in a square-shaped field. Each column is made up of three gems, usually of varying colors, and you can shuffle the gems in different orders. The main objective is to survive as long as possible, and you do this through making gems disappear, which is done by matching three or more of the same color, trying to prevent the field from filling to the top. The biggest catch here, when compared to other contemporary puzzle titles like Tetris or Puyo Puyo, is that you cannot bend the columns into another position; you have to make due with their vertical position.

Columns III takes the templates of its predecessors and throws several new elements into the fray. For example, unlike the versus mode of the first title, where you simply had to outlive the other player with zero interference from one another, Columns III takes a nod from Puyo Puyo, and allows you to attack your opponent and vice versa. This is done by building up a numerical meter that maxes out at 30, which is done when you successfully make gems disappear on your field. When the number reaches 10, you can, at any time, unleash an attack on your opponent.

Attacks result in several things: the opponent's hieroglyphic floor will rise a few inches and their current column in play will be destroyed. The latter is a good tactic if they're about to unleash a chain reaction, and the former can have the floor pushed back down a little by performing a counter attack. But these shouldn't be wasted freely, because a single attack will revert the meter to zero. There are also other mechanics, such as a glowing gem appearing within a column if you cause a 4-chain vanishing combo. If you make this gem disappear, you will impose a temporary punishment to your opponent; this could either be flipping their field upside down, grayscale the gems, or prevent columns from shuffling. There are other elements that cause similar effects, so mentioning them is redundant.

Columns III is quite loaded with features, to the point that it can actually feel overwhelming if you're coming from the original Columns expecting the exact same gameplay. It's one of those instances where you actually need to read the manual or watch the in-game demo tutorial to grasp the new stuff. But once you're caught up and get into the competitive spirit, having a heated match can be really engaging and thrilling. It fixes the biggest flaw of Sega's first Columns, where the company tried turning something that was originally intended to be a relaxing experience into a challenge, as an attempt to compete with Tetris.



However, since Sega made competition the focal point of the third, this came with an unnecessary sacrifice. When you start the game for the first time and access its main menu, you see a total of six game modes. Cool, right? But on closer inspection, you realize that they're all versus modes, even the single-player mode that pits you against AI characters. If you're all in on the versus aspect, then this is neat, but it is very bizarre that a solo, non-versus mode wasn't featured. If anything, the inclusion of a single-player endless or its equivalent, like Flash, would have made the overall product more alluring for variety's sake.

Despite that odd lapse in judgement, the development team did a good job creating a versus-focused product that also takes advantage of the multiplayer adapter; if you have the set-up and enough friends willing to get in on the act, you can have a chaotic session with up to five-players simultaneously; there's even a silly mode where two players cooperate to take down a single player. But if you don't have anyone to play the game with, you can fight against the computer in single-player mode, which is nothing to gawk at. On the default difficulty, you must defeat 10 entities, each in best-of-three matches, with a very limited set of continues.

With there being so few "falling block" puzzle games on the Sega Genesis to begin with, Columns III does just enough to make it stand out from the others. Even if you're not fond of the original Columns, this one is still worth checking out for how much the game deviates with its added mechanics; give it an actual shot and you just might be surprised.

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