Magical Drop 2 Review

Magical Drop is a series of falling block puzzle games originally developed by the now-defunct Data East. It was a popular series in arcades (particularly in Japan), but the series found a newfound popularity when the second and third entries were ported to home consoles. Though the series continues to take long absences between releases as it bounces around from one developer to another, the older titles continue to find their way onto modern gaming hardware. Such is the case with Magical Drop 2’s release on the Nintendo Switch’s Online service, a port of the Super Famicom version of the game. While fans may still be left wondering why Nintendo seems to refuse to add EarthBound and Super Mario RPG to the Switch’s retro lineup, Magical Drop 2 is a surprisingly welcome addition, providing the pure gaming fun that you expect from its genre.

Most falling block-style puzzle games see the blocks fall from the top of the screen to the bottom, with the player trying to prevent the blocks from rising back up to the top. The schtick with Magical Drop, however, is that the game is over as soon as the blocks (or “bubbles”) reach the bottom of the screen. So instead of blocks falling one at a time, the bubbles of Magical Drop slowly descend in rows, with the player trying to eliminate these rows before they reach the bottom of the screen.

How the player does this is pretty unique: the player can grab onto one color of bubble at a time (though they can grab as many of that color as they can), and then throw those bubbles back to the rows above. The player has to line up at least three of the same color bubble vertically in order to eliminate them, but the really cool thing is that if there are other bubbles of the same color coming into contact with what the player pieces together, every connected bubble of that color will be eliminated. So if you play things carefully enough, you can destroy many blocks in different rows with one fell swoop.

It’s a fun setup, and like many games of the genre, the simplicity the gameplay displays on face value hides a whole lot of depth and strategy. Certain modes will also introduce their own gimmicks, such as special bubbles that, should they touch a completed column, will subsequently destroy an entire row, column or surrounding area of bubbles. There are also ice blocks, which are basically neutral bubbles, with all adjacent ice blocks disappearing if a row of bubbles is completed next to them, no matter the color.

The game features several playable characters. They are all charming enough with their cute anime designs. Though one of the game’s more questionable elements is that each character supposedly has their own abilities, but unlike something like Tetris Battle Gaiden, where these abilities are obvious and manually performed by the player, the character abilities in Magical Drop 2 are a lot more vague. From what I understand, the character abilities here revolve around how the rows of bubbles fall, but the action is so fast paced I haven’t the eye to notice the differences between them. And there’s no in-game description of what their abilities do, other than a one-to-five star rating for a character’s strength, and a vague image under their “magic” category. So you’re guess is as good as mine.

Magical Drop 2 features four different modes of play: a single-player mode where the player simply tries to last as long as possible and beat their high score. Then there’s the two player battle mode, of course. There’s also a story mode, where the player selects their character and faces off against the others. Finally, there’s the oddly-named “puzzle” mode, which has the player trying to eliminate screens of all their bubbles in as little moves as possible in order to add more time to a constantly ticking clock. So there’s actually some good variety here, for a game of its time. And given how addictive the gameplay already is, there’s some really good replay value here.

The game features some fun visuals (the characters’ victory and defeat animations are surprisingly fluid), and the music is appropriately upbeat and catchy. Though the game’s audio takes a hit simply because the narrator can get pretty annoying. I’m someone who honestly doesn’t mind Baby Mario’s crying in Yoshi’s Island, and finds the garbled voices of Banjo-Kazooie to be charming, so it’s saying something when a soundbite in a game gets on my nerves. Magical Drop 2’s narrator’s shouts of “No!” whenever something doesn’t go right for either participants (computer player included) is so constant it becomes stressful. The narrator doesn’t even say anything else during a match. It’s not a major issue or anything, but it is a shame that the endless stream of “No!” drowns out the delightful music.

The falling block puzzler is one of gaming’s most purely enjoyable genres: instantly entertaining, addictingly engaging, unhindered by the bells and whistles that gaming has adopted over the years. Magical Drop 2 is another reminder of why the genre is so enduring.

7