Collection essentials #235: Pieces (SNES)

I’ve been covering a lot of childhood games lately, but now here’s one I didn’t play until I was an adult.

Pieces is, as you can guess from looking at the box, based on jigsaw puzzles. But it is not simply a simulation of doing jigsaw puzzles in real life, made into video game form. No, Pieces spices things up. There are two main modes of play, the “Vs.” mode and the “All play” mode. The “Vs.” mode pits you directly against the computer, or against another human player. You each are trying to put together the same puzzle on your side of the screen. The game offers a few pieces at a time, so you can’t go digging through the whole pile for corner pieces. But the really cool gameplay element to Vs. games is that, as you play, you’ll gain the ability to use special powers that will either help you or disrupt your opponent. For example, some of them show you where the pieces on your side go, while others make it so your opponent’s cursor will go super slow or in reverse. There are defensive power-ups too, so you have the option of trying to play aggressively or defensively. It makes for some good and frantic fun that’s not quite like any other puzzle game I’ve played.

A cool thing about “All play” mode is that you can play with up to five players using the SNES multitap! (Normally only two controllers can be plugged into a SNES, but the multitap accessory makes five at once possible) In this mode, everyone is working on the same puzzle, but there is a scoring system and players can compete to see who gets the highest score. You can play this mode solo, too, and there are a few different difficulty settings to ensure that such a session won’t simply be a snoozefest. Harder difficulty options give you a stricter time limit, and/or allows the game to offer you “red herring” pieces that don’t fit anywhere in the puzzle.

This quality game is enhanced with nice music and a good presentation, with expressive cartoony characters featured.

Put this game in the stack of titles that I sure wish I had owned as a kid. But I’m still glad I got to play it eventually. And in my adult life it’s still a very good option for multiplayer play sessions. That’s plenty of reason to grant essential status in my book.