27. Great Deal (Hector, Famicom, 1992)

Great Deal is one of my favorite Famicom games, if we're only judging it by its box art.

To get a jist of the game, ask yourself the question: what if Tetris was played with playing cards? That's more or less all there is to Great Deal, though it's an interesting idea. You have a 5x5 grid that playing cards are dropping down into.

It would be trivial to build lines out of the cards, so the object here is to put together various poker hands. Cards will disappear once formed into groups of 3, 4, or 5 representing a straight, flush, or 3/4-of-a-kind. Combinations that are more difficult to achieve are naturally worth more money, which is important because at the end of the round (52 cards), any remaining cards on the field are deducted from your total score, and with each level a higher total score is required to advance.

So rather than ending up as a solely spatial puzzle game (like Tetris), you have to consider not only the place that your card is going to take up, but also its suit and value for future potential combinations, so it ends up feeling like a much different game. Playing the game for a bit did not do enough to get me used to it. so I had trouble getting past level 4, but I was mostly just putting down 3 card flushes, which are the lowest dollar value hands.

Researching the game for this writing led me to discover that this is actually a direct sequel to 2 other games: Cadillac (Famicom, 1989) and Square Deal (Game Boy, 1990), so I think I might check out Cadillac in the near future to compare.

3/5, a novel twist on the Tetris formula and one of my favorite Famicom boxes.