Puzzled | Joy Joy Kid

[00:00:00] Aaron, I'm really puzzled about something. Is this Tetris or not? I don't know, but I'd rather be at home playing regular-ass Tetris. Or listening to Neo Geo Go. Hey everybody, my name is Andre. I like Neo Geo. Hey, my name's Aaron. I also like Neo Geo. I like to party.

[00:00:29] Do you like Kickstart? Is that your favorite? I do. Orange Kickstart. Totally not sponsoring the show. Oh, it says Mountain Dew on there? So it's like a Mountain Dew? Okay. Maybe that's why I've never picked it up, because I was scared by the Mountain Dew part. It's great, man. They used to have these commercials, not to get too off-topic, they used to have these commercials with the Puppy Monkey Baby. Look it up on YouTube. Puppy Monkey Baby. Oh, Puppy Monkey Baby. That was for Kickstart?

[00:00:56] Yeah, back when they had a million different flavors. Now they just have four. Okay, I thought that was for Snickers or some shit. I don't know what I thought Puppy Monkey Baby was for. Nope. Interesting. Okay, well... Welcome to Puppy Monkey Baby. Welcome to Puppy Monkey Baby. We're here to play Puzzled, released on November 20th, 1990, developed and published by SNK once again. And like we just said, Aaron, this is Tetris.

[00:01:25] This is literally just Tetris. I have no idea how they got away with this, but here it is. It exists. There are some different tricks to it, but you're largely just playing Tetris. Listen, Puzzled has way more hot air balloons than Tetris could ever hope to have. How did they get away with this without like a lawsuit, dude? I'd like... Wow. It's crazy to me. I thought I read somewhere...

[00:01:55] Unless the AI is tricking me, I thought I read somewhere that this was a... Unless the AI is tricking me, I thought this was like... I read somewhere that this was a collaboration between Tetris and SNK or whoever, but that might be wrong. I don't think that's true. Yeah. Well, because here's the thing. Usually Tetris ripoffs, they don't have like the Tetrads. I don't know if we call them that still, but like the actual Tetris shapes, they usually shape them differently.

[00:02:21] If they're going to make their own like Tetris ripoff, these are not shaped differently. No. Yeah. They're straight up Tetromino. It even says on Wikipedia, Tetromino. Tetromino. See, I always screw up saying Tetrads. Maybe that's an outdated nomenclature. Sounds really cool, though. It sounds like the man version of it. Tetrads. Tetrads. Tetrads. Tetrads are from Mars. Tetranemos are from Venus.

[00:02:51] It's like Dr. Pepper 10. It's for Ben, but like this is... Because it's like gunmetal gray and shit. Yeah, dude. Okay. Oh, man. I just like... Yeah. See, this is hard to talk about because it's almost like... Okay. Maybe this is a good comp. If anyone out there has played Tetris Plus for PS1, have you ever played that? That was like the Tetris game at that time.

[00:03:17] And that you helped like a little dude like go down like this shaft. He's like an explorer or something. So you cleared out the Tetris blocks and you helped him like move down the explore further and further until you die or whatever. That's kind of cool. Like, so that's kind of a variation that's like a bit interesting. Puzzled is kind of like that. There's like a balloon trapped at the bottom of the screen, trapped by some like predetermined blocks.

[00:03:42] And you have to clear those blocks to release the balloon and then you win the stage. And that's kind of it. Like, and here's the thing though. I like it. Right? Because I like what you would call, I don't know, Aaron, like puzzle mode in games. You know how like Pokemon Puzzle League has that thing where it's like, okay, clear the blocks in like three moves or something like that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. See, I love shit like that. I think Pack Attack has something like that. Right?

[00:04:08] So I feel a puzzle to remind me of stuff like that, I guess. So I do like this game. It's just almost impossible to say anything about it because it really is just Tetris. Yep. Like the exact same shapes, exact same like way you clear a line. You just literally put blocks together to make a line, clear it. And the hot air balloon goes to the top of the screen.

[00:04:36] I mean, that's about it, man. I can't. Yeah. I'm struggling here. I didn't know what else to put down for notes other than I'd rather be playing. See, I'm a plain ass Tetris guy. I just want to clear lines. I just want to turn off my brain, clear lines, and just go right the fuck to town. Like, I don't want this extra shit. I just want to clear them lines. And I understand that. Right? I would rather play like the regular mode as well.

[00:05:05] But I do, again, I do like quote unquote puzzle modes of these kinds of falling block games as well. You know? Oh, yeah. Like when you really stack up the viruses and Dr. Mario, right? And you have like a full screen of them and you try to clear them all. I like challenges like that. No, yeah. I like that actually. Yep. I forgot about Dr. Mario. Oh, I love Dr. Mario. Me too. God, I'd rather be playing Dr. Mario. Also released in 1990 than Puzzled. I guess it was, you know, the puzzle craze at the time, right? In the 90s.

[00:05:34] This is when it really started to kick into gear. The Japanese name for Puzzled is Joy Joy Kid. So I turned it because I have this on Arcade Archives and they usually give you both ROMs. So I turned to the Joy Joy Kid version to see if there was anything different besides the title screen. Nothing. Nothing was different. So Aaron, that's all I got. Bitchin' music though. Love the main theme.

[00:05:57] I mean, I guess to go along with the Joy Joy Kid theme, I know the box art or promo art or whatever for the game has kids in the hot air balloons. So I'm wondering if that's the kid part. So like it's. Well, yeah. Yeah, maybe that's it. Because like, you know how like when you start the game, you pick between the boy or girl in the balloon that did two different balloons. That's kind of it. It doesn't really do anything. It's just visual. Aaron, I'm sorry. That's all I got. I'll give Puzzled a B minus. It's cool.

[00:06:26] I like playing it, but that's all I can really say. Yeah, I gave it a C minus because I mean, there's around this time. Yeah, you could totally play like a million different kinds of Tetris. You said it yourself. There's also Dr. Mario. I forget when Puyo Puyo came out, but I mean. 1989, I think the first one came out. So that was starting to become a thing. But I don't think it became real popular until it was like ported to a bunch of other systems at this time.

[00:06:54] So it's Puyo's time would come later, I think. Okay. Yeah. I would much rather play regular Tetris. Even Game Boy Tetris. Why is Game Boy Tetris? I'd much rather play Tetris. Yes, you minus. Then Puzzled slash Joy Joy Kid. Okay. Aaron, what's next on Neo Geo Go? Next time, League Bowling. All right. We'll see you then. Until next time, Neo Geo Go. Fuck yourself.