Collection essentials #177: Daruma Dojo (SNES)

One of the joys of being into old school game consoles is discovering really cool, unique Japanese games for them that are incredibly obscure in the West. Even many American gamers like me who love old-school gaming and have even dabbled in the import market are completely unaware that Daruma Dojo exists. Thank God I’m not one of them.

Daruma Dojo is a puzzle game unlike any other that I’ve played. The object of the game is to line up blocks of the all the same type so that they clear, until there is nothing left. Your character stands to the right of a series of columns of blocks, and when they whack a given row, the furthest block to the left goes to the bottom of the screen, and once you fill in all the spaces at the bottom with blocks, they will all clear if they match; otherwise, they’re lifted to the bottom row of the play field and you try again. Obviously it’s not always possible to get a matching set with each attempt, so in that case you need to hit the blocks in a certain order that will set things up for a clear the next time. And what’s cool about this game is that there are two main styles of gameplay to suit whichever kind of puzzle experience you’re looking for: one that requires you to clear all the blocks within a certain number of moves, and one where you have unlimited moves but a limited amount of time to clear everything. And of course, the game has competitive multiplayer for double the fun.

I don’t have much else to say about this game, I haven’t spent a ton of time with it since I have so many other things to play, but I have greatly enjoyed the time I did spend with it, getting to the end of one of the two story modes. I definitely see myself revisiting this game every once in a while. It’s an easy recommendation to anyone who enjoys logic-based puzzle games, and an easy essential pick for my collection.