YMMV / Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine

• Adaptation Displacement: Easily the most popular Puyo Puyo game outside of Japan, even with the release of Puyo Puyo Tetris. Just visit any of the major Puyo Puyo videos on YouTube and see how many comments point out the similarities between the game in question and how it compares to Mean Bean Machine, or even Tetris itself. In comparison, Kirby's Avalanche is much less known (though still popular in its own right), while the English localization of the arcade version of Puyo Puyo (1992) is so obscure that MAME initially only had bootleg-derived ROMs available, which caused some people to believe it was a fake until the official ROMs and an eventual port by SEGA turned up ages later. Because of how obscure Puyo Puyo is compared to Mean Bean Machine, it is not uncommon for some casual players to mistakenly assume that Puyo Puyo is a clone of Mean Bean Machine instead of the other way around, which tends to understandably annoy Puyo Puyo fans.
• Anticlimax Boss: The game's very own titular character, Dr. Robotnik, is a Glass Cannon that can potentially be defeated with one large combo right off the bat. The three bosses preceding him are downright brutal by comparison, with Scratch in particular being That One Boss.
• Awesome Music:
  • Most of the tracks in the game are great, but the Stage 1-4 theme is particularly catchy.
  • Exercise Mode's theme is a well-done remix of "Sticker of Puyo Puyo", already a catchy theme in its own right.
  • One of the best themes in the game is the 2-Player Versus Theme, an incredibly kickass remix of the original Puyo Puyo's final boss theme, "Final of Puyo Puyo". Scenario mode also uses an epic "panic" version of the theme when your area overfills.
• Breather Boss: Two of them, though they're still difficult due to the nature of the game.
  • Coconuts stacks the entirety of the two outer columns before even creating chains, causing him to fill his own space very quickly and allowing him less and less room to maneuver as the match goes on. He does have arguably the best AI in general of the early stages, but his method of stacking to the sides does him in quickly compared to others at this point of the game.
  • Dynamight in relation to Skweel before and Grounder after. Dynamight is still incredibly difficult and can create incredibly large combos to end you, but the time he spends doing overly elaborate combos means it's easier to overwhelm him.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: It's the most popular Puyo Puyo outside of Japan.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • The game retains a bug from the arcade Puyo Puyo (and the virtually arcade-perfect port this game is based on) that prevents AI opponents from manually dropping beans if the D-Pad is held to the left or right on a second controller.
  • Using a certain Game Genie code will unlock an omitted sound test in the options screen. Setting the console or emulator's region to Japanese during gameplay also unlocks it, but will also unlock hidden tracks that would go unused within the game.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Dr. Ivo Robotnik, one of the richest citizens of Mobius managed to earn his very own video game before he became an internet meme and one of, if not the most prominent character featured in YouTube Poops.
  • Compile, the company who co-developed this game, created and owned the Puyo Puyo franchise until they went bankrupt in 2001 and ended up giving the franchise to SEGA, who currently has Sonic Team working on the games. Guess what other franchise Sonic Team owns?
  • Also, this wouldn't be the last game in the Sonic franchise based on a cartoon.
  • Hell, this wouldn't even be the last time Sonic and Puyo Puyo crossed over. He even appears as a playable character in Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, with several Sonic-themed items appearing as DLC.
  • The whole point of the retool was because SEGA didn't think the Western gamers at the time would take to the cutesy Madou Monogatari aesthetic of the original game. While Puyo Puyo is still somewhat obscure in the West, it has sold some titles here unedited and garnered a fan base from exports, while Mean Bean Machine's cosmetics likely dumbfound anyone outside veteran gamers who grew up watching Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
  • Despite Robotnik being the villain, Sonic is never seen in-game. Twenty-four years later, Sonic and (SEGA) Robotnik finally face off in a Puyo Puyo match in Sonic Mania, this time in a literal Mean Bean Machine!
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Yippee! Yippee! Yippee! YIPPEE! Chaining combos has never sounded better.
  • Hearing Dr. Robotnik scream when you beat him and knowing your journey is finally over is beautiful. Aaaaauuuuuugh!!!
• Nightmare Fuel: This variation really amps up the pressure during gameplay compared to the cutesy original. When your area begins to overfill, not only is the 'panic' theme a more sinister fast paced remix of the Dark Prince's theme, but most of your opponents start laughing evilly or bare a creepy Slasher Smile at you. Notable examples include Frankly's fierce glare, Skweel's rapidly flopping head, Dynamight's Cheshire Cat Grin, Dragon Breath's smug look, and of course, Scratch's Psychotic Smirk.
• Polished Port: The Game Gear and Master System versions, while not nearly as cosmetically impressive, have some nice features the Genesis version doesn't, such as an exclusive puzzle mode and an extra background near the end of the game. Robotnik's sprites also resemble his cartoon design more strongly than they do in the Genesis version. Sadly however, it also counts as a Porting Disaster from the Game Gear Puyo Puyo title it is edited from, which made a far more impressive attempt to replicate the Mega Drive/Arcade version's sound and graphics, with the Master System port of Mean Bean Machine only dumbing things down further.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Though many question the reskin and its relevance as a Sonic game even with it, its gameplay is considered as fun as the original Puyo game and a classic puzzle title even to those inexperienced with either the Japanese franchise or Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
• Surprise Difficulty: You wouldn't expect the robots who constantly get outsmarted by Sonic The Hedgehog to be able to effortlessly hold their own in a puzzle game fight but they'll crush you as early as stage two if your Puyo Puyo skills are poor.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The game not only has some tweaked music from the original Puyo Puyo but seems to take a few notes from Kraftwerk. The Stage 9-12 theme in particular sounds like an off key "Home Computer" (and it's actually toned down from the original premix).
• That One Boss:
  • Scratch is the last opponent before Robotnik, and, for the one-half of a Bumbling Henchmen Duo of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, he's no slouch. He blatantly admits to cheating during the match. He's also incredibly good at making combos over and over again. The smug, evil grin he bears when he gains the upper hand only makes matters that much worse.
  • Skweel is also known to stop a few runs. The fact that his appearance is when the difficulty of the game starts ramping up isn't really helping. He is incredibly fast, especially on higher difficulties, where he can create combos and matches a lot faster than you can.

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