Panel de Pon: of fairies and forgotten franchises

It plays the same, but it abandons the mascot characters almost entirely (no "almost" in international versions). That's erasing half the charm of the franchise right there.

edited 29th Aug '14 3:45:42 PM by Midna

Same thing for the 3DS iteration. It also plays kinda weirdly, like the blocks disappear really slowly and the cursor tends to jump around too fast and is a bit hard to control (though that might just because of the circle pad, which is a pain in the ass).

An RPG like that would be interesting. I might actually play that if it were real—I really tend to only like playing RP Gs with unique battle mechanics rather than standard ones.

They should bring this game over just so that everyone would know about Thanatos(this game's version). Hes faaabuuloouuuus

wait

There's a 3DS Puzzle League game I don't know about?

You thinking of Kid Icarus Uprising?

Sort of? There's one in the eShop.

You mean Puzzle League Express? That has actually been out for a long while as D Si Ware.

I already have Planet Puzzle League so there's little point in getting that game.

^^Well, that IS the more known Nintendo Thanatos, But I'm talking about this guy. Seriously, look at those lips

It's not the Circle Pad's fault. I've heard that said about Planet Puzzle League as well. Might be the biggest complaint beyond the sterile presentation. (And, like I said, the panels don't even pop anymore. Why would you do that.)

I mostly want the series in its original form to get more widespread exposure because I love the fairy characters, but especially Lip. She's such a cutie-pie~◊

edited 31st Aug '14 3:44:19 PM by Midna

I'll put in this useful thing:

If you can't speak Japanese, but you want to experience Panel de Pon in its original fairy glory, a guy called Zuqkeo has come to the rescue.

I've heard of that patch, it's pretty neat. ^^ (Not sure about changing Seren to Selene, though. The former is セレン, the latter is セレーネ. There's a difference. I do like Sherbet, Thanatos, and Cordelia, however.)

Useless trivia: I've played the game in Japanese before - it's never very complicated Japanese, so it's good if you're learning! - and I can say the translator kind of rewrote some bits, mostly towards the beginning of Vs. mode. If I'm remembering right, the English TA script for that part is pretty much 1:1 with the Japanese, except all mention of plural monsters is changed to singular Bowser and no mention is made of Lip figuring out how to reverse the spell.

(...I am such a geek.)

On the subject of ROM hacks, I actually made a relatively simple one of the NES Dr. Mario once just to express love of Panel de Pon and... wanting-to-snuggleness? for Lip. You can download it here, but be warned that it's the first version upload so it's kind of rough in places. (I'll get around to uploading that Version 1.1 patch someday...)

edited 2nd Sep '14 2:49:00 AM by Midna

I wonder... would it be possible to hack Pokemon Puzzle League to be Panel de Pon 64 or Yoshi's Puzzle League?

Probably. I've seen lots of n64 hacks, even somebody making Ocarina of Time into using a full Waluigi model.

If the other character have no special abilities, it's even easier, as you just put the "characters" into their slots, with maybe a few animations. Making the menu and music different isn't beyond difficult either. It'd still take quite a bit of effort, of course, you know, avoiding glitches and such.

but the Nintendo Puzzle Collection version of Panel de Pon already exists

which is what Panel de Pon 64 was supposed to be

it even has 4-way multiplayer (which Pokemon Puzzle League lacked)

I've started playing the translated game.

I find it amusing that there's both a water fairy (Elias) and a sea fairy (Neris). Similarly, there's a flower fairy (Lip) and a nature fairy (Thiana). The person who made this game has no sense of redundancy when it comes to the elements.

Found a web-browser flash-based version of the game:

http://www.letsplaysnes.com/play-panel-de-pon-online/?play=true

So is this game just a whole lot of praying that matching colors don't get stuck in the dreaded L-formation? Can I turn the swapper box to swap above with below?

Elias and Neris did always seem a little redundant to me, but Lip always struck me as having power over flowers specifically. Thiana would me more related to stuff you would see in a forest, like animals, vines, or trees.

Panels can only be swapped horizontally.

edited 2nd Sep '14 6:32:27 PM by Midna

I've changed my Avatar in celebration of both Super Smash Bros. and this series, because might as well.

Also, Lip is one of the few "classic" characters left to revive via SSB.

It's so annoying that there are all these playthroughs that make chains look so easy. I can't get the hang of as little as a 3x chain. AUGH!

Neat to see you're showing the franchise in its original form some love. That was one of my goals in making this topic. ^^

Keep in mind that most of the people you see making chains in those videos have been playing Panel de Pon/Tetris Attack/Puzzle League/call it what you want their entire lives. You just need some practice. I'm not very good at it either, honestly!

But I don't want to play it my entire life. I want to be good at it NOW.

I've had that kind of feeling before... Practice will make perfect, you know.

At least in the first game, there's an option accessible from the main menu ("How to Improve") that shows off some gameplay demonstrations of large combos and long chains. You could try looking there for inspiration.

I did look at that. It didn't make me any better.

Also, how come Sherbet, Ruby, and Neris aren't playable outside of VS mode? Did they run out of cartridge space before they could make stages for them?

It's possible. Remember that this was a cartridge-based game - ergo back when space was a major concern - with large, colorful artwork. They may have passed over their single-player stages to save ROM.

Could be worse though, just look at the Game Boy version of Tetris Attack. (Poor Bumpty.)