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A very capable port of the arcade game, carrying over all the modes and content from the arcade game (including the story scenes that were dumped from the English version) and throwing in some new modes and content for good measure, along with a pleasant variety of customizable options.
The game supports the traditional PlayStation controller, the DualShock's analogue controls, and even the limited edition paddle controller! Alongside the regular jewel case edition in Europe, a special edition was sold that came bundled with a blue and green paddle controller; it feels a bit cheap but it works well enough.
Alongside the Story and Testing Modes, there are two new modes: Time Attack, wherein you can challenge yourself to four difficulties and aim to get the fastest completion time; and Rapid Mode, an endless version of Testing Mode that lasts as long as your skills hold out. Story Mode's difficulty settings have been stripped from three to two to make way for Original Mode: a brand new story mode wherein you choose what character you want to battle in any order you wish, and steal their attack formation upon beating them. Each character has up to three endings.
Although a minor fault, one of the biggest draws about the arcade game - the giant, animated sprites of the characters in the background - have lost a fair number of animation frames. Some characters suffer worse than others, but it's a bit jarring to see the smooth animation butchered to a few choppy frames, especially if you're so acquainted with the arcade version.
On the bright side, the artwork still looks great, and there's exclusive artwork and an animated video scene for the new Original Mode story, so that makes for a nice apology.
Still, hardware limitations aside, this is probably the best home port you can get of the game. The variety of game modes give you a lot to offer, and I might even have to dedicate a sentence to the options screen just to praise it for how neat and customizable it is - you can change the appearance of the blocks! This version is pretty easy to stumble across online, and for very cheap, too, so there's no reason not to try and give it a bash.
There are actually three ways of unlocking Patrako!
[1] On the title screen, choose Options. Select Game Level and set Ball Speed to "Arcade".
You must finish Story Mode (in Arcade Mode) in under 7 minutes, and are allowed to continue only 5 times or less.
[1] On the title screen, choose Options. Select Game Level and set Ball Speed to "Arcade".
You must finish a stage of Trial Mode on the Expert difficulty setting. [src]
[3] On the title screen, choose Options. Then choose Exit. Repeat 13 times. (no, seriously.) An icon will appear on the title screen to signify your success. (Thanks to Zara for informing me of this!) This method will not save to the Memory Card, however. [src]
Play for 3 minutes without losing any matches. You cannot progress until Patrako is defeated, however.
Completing the first four Time Attack difficulties in under 3 minutes (each!) will unlock the final difficulty, Mania/Super Gamer, featuring a teeny tiny little paddle! [src]
Every character has three palettes that are determined by what button you used to select the character.
1P colour = press Circle.
2P colour = press Start.
3P colour = press Circle and Start simultaneously.
It's not a code, but I needed some place to elaborate on this!
There are 3 endings for each character, and what ending you get appears to be determined by the amount of time spent in battles; what order you fight the opponents; and how many continues you use.
opponent order | total time | continues | |
| GOOD END: | left to right | under 10 minutes | 1 or less |
| ODD END: | right to left | under 18 minutes | 10 or less |
| BAD END: | any order | over 18 minutes | 10 or more |
The opponent order appears to be relatively lax, as Raider's Puchi Carat Jewellery Shop suggests you should battle the opponents in order of lowest to highest strength - starting at Rquo, then Garnet through Peridot, then Opa, Sapphire and Paz (or the reverse for the Odd End). I assume it has some flexibility in who you choose, though how far you can push it is beyond me.
In Japan, the game was reissued twice; first on June 22 2000 as a "Value Disc", and again in September 24 2007 (!) as a "PSOne Classic".
In Europe, the game was first released in 2000 by Event Horizon in two different versions; one as the game packaged on its own, and a "Limited Edition" version in a large cardboard box with an exclusive paddle controller included. The game was released again (without the paddle) on April 13 2001 by EON Digital Entertainment under the "Value" label.
On September 24 2008 the game was re-released as a digital download on the PlayStation Network Store in Japan, available for both the PS3 and PSP. It's a solid emulation of the game with toggles for digital and analogue control, and even has scans of the Japanese manual included. No paddle controls, unfortunately!
The dialogue is finally translated into English... though it leaves something to be desired. Besides the stiff translation, it's noticably lacking font colours and the silly emoticons. It also can't fit all the text into one window, having to refresh to show it all.
Because of the programming required for the translation, pressing Circle will skip the entire conversation, whereas in the Japanese version it simply prints all the text at once.
As you can see, the European version also has a slightly taller screen resolution; this is due to the differences between PAL and NTSC televisions or some gobbledygook like that.
The How To Play mode has C-Mond narrate the action for you on top of the text hints in the Japanese version. The English version removed the voice acting.
The special credits sequence for Original Mode plays the vocal track "Chasing Smiles". The European version replaces it with the instrumental "Friends Staff" track.
The English translation is rather questionable, but to its credit, they did edit the code to allow ASCII text to be output during the dialogue scenes - the Japanese version actually stores bitmaps of every single dialogue exchange in its graphic data, and prints them tile by tile.
The European version still uses images for the prologues and endings of Original Story Mode, although raw text still exists for most of them. They're mostly identical with the exception of some spelling and punctuation, but here's a few notable (or amusing) differences.
| Thyst (ending 2) | DRAFT: | Shyt's happiness is becoming good at her games. |
| FINAL: | Shyst's happiness is becoming good at her games. | |
| Rquo (ending 3) | DRAFT: | My desire is, of course, conquering the world. My desire is not conquering the world. |
| FINAL: | Ruco's aim is, of course, conquering the world. Nonsense! |
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| Rald (ending 3) | DRAFT: | Oh Rald! You belong only to me. |
| FINAL: | Oh Lilly! You belong only to me ♥ | |
| Patrako (ending) | DRAFT: | Here I am. I finally came back to the home of Ptolemy's. |
| FINAL: | Here I am. I finally came back to the home of Paoli Myos |
The text begins at offset 3498100 in the "MASTER.ARC" file and is sorted mode by mode, character by character.
Producer
Director
Game Designer
Character Designer
Original Sound Composer
Package Designer
Software Manual
Programmer
Original Character Designer
Game Character Production Manager
Game Character Original Picture
Animation Character Production Manager
Animation Character Original Picture
Ending Original Picture
Animation Checking
Animation
Final Check
Art Background
Casting Producer
Narration Recording
Sound Production
Recording
Marketing
Bug Check
Special Thanks
Atsushi Taniguchi
Eiji Takeshima
Takahiro Fujito
Atsushi Taniguchi
Takahiro Fujito
Chiho Maeda
Ken Ninomiya
Mari Fukusaki
Youko Kaneko
Kazuhiro Fujimoto
Disty Nobu
YACK
Chiho Maeda
Ken Ninomiya
Mari Fukusaki
Kazuhiro Fujimoto
Disty Nobu
Takeshi Ikenotani
Takehiko Ishikawa
Tomoki ODa
Nozomu Kawai
Eiko Kawabe
Yasuhisa Watanabe (ZUNTATA)
Kumi Kayama
Naoto Hashizume
MICHIAKI
Yasuhito Nagumo
Tomoaki Kasuya
Shinya Sasaki
Yasunobu Kousokabe
Masahiko Nakada
Masaaki Iwane
Hiromi Naganawa
Senri Ikehira
Akihiro Tamagawa
Yoshitaka Yoshikawa
Tai Honkan
Chika Ueno
Kayo Ohsima
Tomoynari Kanaishi
Mayumi Ohmura
Takashi Kagawa
Yumiko Kitajima
Kyouko Sugiyama
Noriko Sugiyama
Akiko Suzuki
Hiromi Suzuki
Hironori Nisio
Takehiro Matsumoto
Satsuki Muramatsu
Hidenori Inoue
Hiroaki Yoshikawa
Yoshikazu Ohshima
Tokyoo Ashida
Hidenori Inoue
Kiyomi Ishiwata
Miwa Sakai
Mika Takahashi
Sayuri Takahashi
Sakako Itakura
Yasuhide Takeuchi
Yasushi Nakura
Soushi Shiihara
HALF HP STUDIO
ABAKO CREATIVE STUDIO
ZUNTATA STUDIO
Shiromaru
Miu Nagata
Sarry
DREAMS
Seizou Matsutaka
Yoshihiro Suzuki
Yoshihisa Nagata
Yuji Iwasaki
Toshiaki Kato
Takashi Shiokawa
Seiichi Nakakuki
Seiji Kawakami
Yuji Koga
Yasuo Tsumori
Hisakazu Kato
Keppel Maekawa
Kazuhiro Oohara
Eiji Takeshima
Tomokazu Taniyama
Yukio Abe
Nobuaki Kuroki
Kyousuke Hayase
Yasutaka Hayashi
Akiyosi Takada
Hisashi Matsuo
Masahiro Nomura
Kumiko Nishida
Yuki Shimoyama
Naoki Matsuo
Hitoshi Ohno
Sasakimi
T.Takahashi
Masae Minagawa
Tomoko Koyama
(ITL)
