Sailor Moon S Kurukkurin
Game title screen | |
Name (original): | 美少女戦士セーラームーンS: くるっくりん |
---|---|
Name (romanized): | Bishoujo Senshi Seeraa Muun S: Kurukkurin |
Name (translated): | |
System: | Super Nintendo |
Publisher: | |
Release Date: | 1995 |
Sailor Moon S Kurukkurin was a puzzle game released for the Super Nintendo in Japan in 1995. The goal of the game was to get the three Talismans before the opponent, by clearing blocks between it and the bottom of the game board. All of the good characters from the Sailor Moon S season were playable and had different powers.
Gameplay[edit]
Gameplay screenshot |
Like most puzzle games in the Tetris line of evolution, the play area was a series of columns, twelve split between the two players. The normal pieces were colored hearts, but there were also special items hidden among them.
- Sky blue hearts were unknowns until the player passed the cursor over them to reveal them, or used a special item. They could be destroyed when colored hearts sharing a border with them were destroyed. The colored hearts could be pink, yellow, green, or blue and could be destroyed by selecting a section of two or more of the same color bordering each other.
- Wands were used to activate a character's special power. The special powers each had unique effects on the opponent's side of the play area, or destroyed all Daimons on the player's side of the play area.
- Arrows would shoot in the direction they pointed, and destroyed all hearts they passed, but could not destroy talismans or hatched Daimons. They could be useful for destroying special items on the opponent's side, destroying Daimon Eggs, and eliminating many blocks that in the way.
- Daimons began as eggs, and hatched gradually over a random period of time. They could not be destroyed by normal means, and could not be turned back into sky blue hearts after hatching. If a talisman came into contact with a hatched Daimon (which looked like Professor Tomoe) both it and the Daimon disappeared. If a Daimon was on the play area when the player activated a wand, it destroyed the Daimon instead of using the character's special move on the opponent. Their hatching could be temporarily halted if hearts under the eggs are cleared, but that did not work for long.
- Silver Crystals (which looked like pink gems) did different things depending on what color heart they were used with. Pink hearts turned over all the opponent's hearts, making them sky blue, a useful tactic for slowing down the opponent. Blue hearts turned over all of the player's hearts, which would help the player quickly clear their board. Yellow hearts removed the bottom row of the player's side of the board; this could be used to remove Daimons (and their eggs), as well as dropping a talisman on the board into the player's posession. Green hearts switched the player's rightmost column with their opponent's leftmost column; these could be used to give your opponents the player's Daimons, and could also be used to prevent the opponent from obtaining a talisman, as the talisman would disappear when the columns switched.
- Brooches, when combined with a colored heart, removed all hearts of that color from the player's board. These helped when there was a talisman stuck on the board with no matching colours with which to remove it. It could also be very useful combined with a Silver Crystal and blue heart. An advanced tactic for using the brooches when a talisman was present was to collect four of them (one for each color), then use a Silver Crystal/blue heart combination, eliminating every color for an instant talisman.
- There were a few other blocks specific to various special powers.
Special Powers[edit]
Moon Spiral Heart Attack |
- Sailor Moon randomly destroyed a group of blocks on the opponent's side of the board. Super Sailor Moon, a hidden character, destroyed a larger group of blocks. While this could be useful, it was very unreliable and could just as easily help the opponent as hinder.
- Sailor Mercury could freeze all sky blue hearts on the opponent's side of the board for several seconds, forcing them to work with only the already revealed pieces. It could be very useful when combined with a gem to turn everything sky blue.
- Sailor Mars sent a scattering of fire to destroy random blocks on the opponent's side. Like Sailor Moon's attack, this could both help and hinder, but had a less pronounced effect because the destroyed blocks were scattered.
- Sailor Jupiter electrified all hearts of a random color (not sky blue), turning them into an "electrified" sky blue that could not be destroyed except by arrows until the electricity went away. This attack was good for slowing an opponent down.
- Sailor Venus destroyed random special blocks, including Daimons and talismans, on the opponent's side. It was possibly the most useful special power because the player could be sure of destroying an opponent's talisman.
- Tuxedo Mask's character sprite jumped into the middle of the opponent's side and stayed there for a while. AI opponents would act confused and avoid the area until he was gone, but the technique was fairly useless against any human player who was paying attention, as the time he took jumping to the other side of the screen was more than enough to memorize what he would be standing on top of. It was also possible to see the edges of the objects behind him, as his sprite did not completely obscure the hearts.
- Sailor Chibi Moon created an umbrella in the place of a random block on the opponent's side. When the blocks under it were destroyed, nothing fell to take their place while the umbrella was there. Umbrellas could be destroyed by shooting them with arrows, allowing them to scroll off the top of the screen, or destroying them as sky blue hearts if they are reverted to that form. A single umbrella could just be mildly annoying but multiple could be devastating.
- Sailor Neptune stopped new blocks from falling onto the opponent's screen for a time, leaving them only with what was already there. A clever opponent could take advantage of this by clearing as much of the screen as they could and readying a Silver Crystal to reveal all of the screen as soon as the blocks fell. The blocks falling when the power expired could bring a talisman very far down the opponent's side.
- Sailor Uranus eliminated everything in a column on the opponent's side, leaving it empty for a time. Blocks on either side did not connect to each other over the gap, which could greatly reduce the opponent's options, depending on which column it is. When the time was up, the blocks fell back into place and, like Neptune's power, this could get a talisman very far down the screen.
- Sailor Pluto took the opponent's column along the center line as her own for a time, reducing the opponent's play area while increasing hers. The only thing that would not change sides when the column shifted ownership were talismans. A player could get rid of their opponent's talisman on rare occasions this way, but should a talisman fall in that column while it was on the player's side, it could be difficult to claim it before the power expired and it was lost again.
- Sailor Saturn, a hidden character, had the cruelest power of them all. She randomly created three Daimon Eggs on the opponent's side that would hatch like normal. Daimon eggs were hard to destroy and could appear right next to a talisman, automatically destroying it as soon as it hatched. Saturn's power gave an advantage early in the game, in that wands were introduced earlier than Daimon Eggs, and thus the opponent had an extra obstacle.