Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is a competitive-focused falling blocks type of a puzzle game for up to 2 players. It got released right at the end of 1993. It was developed by Compile and by Sega CS division. Had 8 Megabit ROM. Uses passwords.
Now, let me tell you a freaking amazing story:
Puyo Puyo was a falling block puzzle game originaly released to MSX and then to NES, made by Compile in 1991 as a spinoff to Madou Monogatari RPG games, featuring characters from it, I heard. That original had Endless, Puzzle and Competitive mode, but competitive was 2 human players only.
Then in 1992 they combined effort with Sega to develop arcade version of Puyo Puyo that had competitive single-player campaign and was the one that became the big deal, as competitive mode was the most fitting to the game.
Of course this version got ported to various platform. Sega Mega Drive one is noted for having very accurate port, due to arcade running on almost same hardware, cutting out voices aside, probably as they decided to use smaller ROM.
But for some reason it was decided that western players aren't going to be able to handle console Puyo Puyo the way it was. and so Sega went and turned it into Mean Bean Machine by redoing assets to fit in as Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog tie-in. Surprisingly, it doesn't have Sonic or Tails at all, main character is player himself. Now you have to handle a series of robots henchman who abuse puns.
Nintendo also couldn't resist and in 1995 with HAL Laboratory and Compile had Kirby's Avalanche. The main feature is that Kirby is a total jarkass.
Also, yea, there is actually Sega 8-bit port of Bean Mean Machine. That one is better due to also having puzzle mode.
The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version.
Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here:
The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library.
It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody.
However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time!
Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves.
As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use, just change file extension to ".bin" or so. The file for this one being "ROBOTNIK_U.68K".
I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first. You can find it here on store page or go to "manuals" folder of game root and open "DRMBM_PC_MG_EFIGS_US_150ppi.pdf".
Has online (in Bedroom HUB only) and local multiplayer.
In this game Dr Robotnik, who seemingly has a slightly different artstyle from even cartoons, decided to destroy fun and dancing by turning beans into robots in his Mean Bean-Steaming Machine. Good thing that you are going to stop him by beating puntastic henchman in the 1v1 beaning. Manual plot excuse is that grouped beans in enemy holding cell go to the machine, while your grouped beans escape.
What I don't understand if why Has Bean, Barnuckle in original, weird rabbit-star that clowns around between boards, wasn't changed. Looks out of place. Would have been better if it was Tails.
Options just consist of controls switching, pointless input test which is more of arcade leftover, amount of max matches in 2 player versus albeit you can always just continue on the spot, whether you want voice samples in gameplay to play or not which made more sense in original Puyo Puyo that had voice announcing and anime girls yells. Who can hate “Yeehaw!” here?
Oh yea, and difficulty for scenario mode. Hard to say, it does a variety of thing like speed at which beans drop and possibly AI of enemies.
So, main scenario mode. There are no tutorial or begginner course like in original Puyo Puyo. You got 13 stages to beat total, 12 stages seemingly split into 3 tiers, each ending with familiar regular character from the cartoon. Looking fancy, Scratch. I actually thing that either game was made harder or the difficulty curve just comes much earlier. At least most people say that the third opponent was much harder than he should be. Just keep trying and you will get lucky.
And so, the main gameplay. What's so special about Puyo Puyo series? Well, I believe that it was one of the very first games that took your usual falling blocks puzzle and, inspired by Street Fighter hype in arcades, took competitive spin, adding ability for players to interact with each other.
The rules are simple. There is usual limited space, blocks fall down, you must not let it get overfilled, sorta. The blocks are made out of two randomly colored beans that you can rotate freely. Once set down, these two beans will separate and fall down on it's own. Same colored beans connect horizontally and vertically, as usual. If you put 4 or more beans into a chunk of any shape together then they will get cleared. As you can see, it's quite plain and overly easy.
However, if you make a chunk of more than 4 beans then single rocks are going to drop into opponent's field at random column. Those are colorless Refugee Beans that will dissapear only if you clear out beans chunk nearby. Futhermore, the game rewards combo chains grealy. A double chain for example will drop a whole row of rocks at enemy field. As a result you start to build and plan various beans construction out of whatever game gives you, ready to trigger and create huge avalanches on enemy field that might be impossible to recover from. However! It's quite dynamic as another choice is to create few simpler quick chains in order to throw opponent off, blocking up his great wall of China. It's your way of interrupting, so it's wise to look at what is going on in enemy board as well.
Trust me, it's amazing fun. Simple yet highly competitive.
Also, beating game on Hardest just gives "thanks for playing" words instead of "try on harder" words after credits. Not worth it.
There is 2 player versus mode. Not much to say, you can select your own difficulty as a way to handicap, for example. Some of which change speed at which beans drop or add refugee beans at bottom.
And there is Exercise mode. Pretty much Endless. Allows up to two players but they can't interact with each other. As I have said, without competitive interaction the Puyo Puyo rules are way too plain and easy, the only difficult part is game setting up impossible to control speed. You can choose difficulty, which means starting level. I think that on easy and normal game Has Bean finally gets the point of existance occasionally, dropping randomly as powerup, walking down the beans and turning them to same color. On hard one I was getting Big Bean random powerup instead, double sized bean that crushes everything underneath it. But eh. It's not worth getting this game for this Endless, it's more for Exercise.
Graphics is extremely pleasant, the emotions that opponent face shows during scenario will rev you up toward victory, looks cartoony good. And music is totally rad, mostly being combination of Puyo Puyo remixes and new composition to fit mechanical scheme. Win!
So, conclusion: It's Puyo Puyo on Steam! Why aren't you playing it, fool?
