Arcade Hits: Magical Drop

I really hate region locked consoles. I've read the reasons that companies do this, and on all levels I either disagree with their logic or simply don't care for their attitude towards the consumer.

This "protection" that region-locking offers companies is unreasonably restrictive for the player, but – unfortunately – it's a fact of gaming life.

MonkeyPaw is looking to right some of the past wrongs of this practice by re-releasing Japanese PSOne titles that never made it to the west, attempting to pick up games for publication that a specific section of an English-speaking audience should be interested in exploring.

With Arcade Hits: Magical Drop it theoretically made a good choice, but it's tough to recommend because of how little the studio has changed in the process of bringing it over.

The game is great, but clearly of its time. Released in 1995, this has early Japanese PlayStation game written all over it. 2D and faux-3D sprites are large but unrefined, artwork is colourful but lacking in animation, music is CD quality but orchestrated by what sound like MIDI instruments.

But its gameplay is timeless. In the main single player-offering the screen is divided into two, with you facing off against the computer. The aim is to pop coloured Drops as they slowly get lower and lower, ensuring they don't pass a marker just above your chosen character, much like Bust-a-Move. Getting them to disappear is as easy as matching four of the same colour in one line.

Unlike the stationary heroes of the Taito classic, you move your avatar left to right to aim your shots. Another difference is that you can temporarily remove Drops from the field, as long as they're all the same shade on the spectrum, and fire them back into play.

You can chain explosions of Drops together, which in turn fills a meter and subsequently chucks them your opponent's way.

There are also Ice Drops, which you can destroy by creating scoring lines of regular Drops next door to them. Power-ups come in the form of Special Items that take out anything on the board with which they share their colour, though they're much rarer.

A two-player mode lets you replace the AI with a pal and a Survival mode presents a continued assault from the field above as you strive for high scores.

The experience is much more frantic than the average puzzler. Magical Drop requires quick fingers and the ability to plan two or three moves in advance.

When the pressure becomes too much you find respite in the Puzzle mode. Here you're given a set number of moves to clear the screen of Drops, but with as much time to ruminate as you could possibly want.

It's an equally difficult style of play, with some real humdingers from the very start, though it does teach you more advanced techniques to use in the main game.

Here's the kicker: you'll only learn how to gain access to these modes or learn how the game is played through either playing for hours or going to the publisher's website. Magical Drop doesn't attempt to teach you anything about its systems directly, but even if it did it would all be in Japanese.

MonkeyPaw has brought the game over in its totally original form, meaning that no text whatsoever is in English. Which is exactly why it's a struggle to suggest that people should go and download this.

For those who don't mind fumbling their way through the menus or researching how the game works, it's not an issue - having the chance to play MagiDro is enough to warrant buying it. To everyone else it's extremely off-putting.

If you've been absolutely gagging to play this entry in the fantastic series for a while and you're willing to put serious effort in, then this is a marvellous opportunity.

But if you just want a new downloadable puzzle game, we'd suggest you give it a miss. The staggering difficulty is exacerbated by the language barrier, meaning this will likely remain a little-known gem.