84. Puzzle Link 2 (Yumekobo, Neo Geo Pocket Color, 2000)

It's games like this that make me glad I started this blog. I put Puzzle Link 2 in my Neo Geo Pocket Color expecting to play a boring or difficult puzzle game, but I found a fully featured title that stands alongside other puzzle titles as a simple fun time.

Puzzle Link 2 is a grid based puzzle game that is all about linking tiles and making chains. Blocks are constantly coming down from the top of the screen, and linking any 2 of the same type makes those groups (or single blocks) disappear. The game runs with this idea in a variety of fun ways. After several levels of linking 3 or 4 types of blocks, there was a stage with only 2 types, but the new blocks spawned at a way faster rate, so reflexes came into play as much as planning and logic. There is a very nice difficulty curve as you get used to the mechanics.

The game also has a puzzle mode where you have infinite time to complete pre-designed puzzles in as few moves as possible. With most puzzle games, I play a few rounds of the puzzle mode and then go back to the normal mode, but here I got way into the puzzles. Because there are so few possible moves in each puzzle, they feel (and usually are) solvable in a few tries. There is also a 2-player mode, but I don't know anyone with a Neo Geo Pocket Color, unfortunately.

5/5, are all of the puzzle games on the NGPC sleeper hits?