Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
A modified version of
Puyo Puyo including Sonic characters, but only really Dr. Robotnik as there's no mention of Sonic whatsoever. The game plays like a "battle
Tetris" between two players, and involves falling colored beans that clear when matched in groups of four of more of the same color. The more beans one player clears, the more "robot beans" drop onto the other player's screen, which are black and can only be cleared when a group of colored beans clears next to them. The object of the game is to make the opponent's screen fill first, or to simply play well and hope they lose on their own.
The game plays much more fast, frenzied, and fun than most other
Tetris-style games due to its emphasis on combination clears and the direct competition in which it's played. The longer a combo string, the more robot beans drop onto the opposing player, so there's more than just a high score to consider in the pursuit of combo setups and quick clearing.
Legacy...
Puyo Puyo games are fairly easy to come by, and Nintendo owners can find
Puyo Pop Fever on
GameCube and
DS.
Mean Bean Machine sticklers can still find the game on
Sonic Mega Collection for GameCube, which also includes a number of other Virtual Console titles and retails for much less than it would cost to download all the games separately. Wii's backward compatibility with GameCube means that having the download is a negligible convenience compared to owning the more expansive, less expensive
Mega Collection.
