Columns Review - Not Dead Yet
Not Dead Yet is a series of reviews of retro games deemed important enough to play before you die. Obviously we can’t play all of them but we can at least check them out to see how well they’ve held up
What they say about it
Match-three titles have a history all of their own and the basic mechanics remain a cornerstone of the puzzle world, but Columns will always be special, its sparkling game pieces serving as a living embodiment of the glitzy sheen Sega employed, while its somewhat unpredictable high score rushes keep players tapping away into the night
What we say about it
I appreciate the simplicity of Columns. It’s the match-3 genre stripped to its purest form - take your stack of gems as they fall, re-arrange them, and match 3 colors in a row to make them disappear. Horizontal, vertical, diagonal - it doesn’t matter. If you keep pace, the gem levels stay low and you keep running up your score.
It sounds super easy - and it is for a bit. Gems fall at a slow enough speed where you can take a beat and plan out your next moves. Then after a few clears, the fall rate ticks up slightly. Everything’s still going fine. Between the Roman inspired backdrops and Clotho blaring in the background, you find yourself in a zone.
Things go well for a while until you mess up a rotation that doesn’t end in a clear while also messing up your next potential moves. The next stack doesn’t give you the colors needed to fix that mistake so you start panic dropping. This happens a few more times and before you know it, your jar is half full.
The game seems to know this because the speed ticks up again. There’s not enough time to react so you start to play the sides. Unless your pattern recognition is quick and on point, this becomes a losing strategy so you shift to the middle to try to get some clears. Things somehow get worse.
This is about the point where panic mode started to set in
As the speed becomes too much and you lose ground, you hit the moment of frustration and just mass drop until the gems spill over the top. It’s game over as Conciliation plays you out.
Keep in mind that all of the above plays out in the span of 5 minutes and that’s okay because you’re ready to jump back in and try again. It’s such a simple gameplay loop but there’s something to be said about how addicting it is.
Should you play this game before you die?
I’ll keep it brief - you should. You can play a few rounds of this game for 15 minutes and pretty much get the entirety of the Columns experience. Don’t let the simplicity fool you though; it’s that quick hit that keeps you coming back in hopes of pushing your next score even higher.