The Magical Drop series has been around for nearly twenty years. They are puzzle games in the classic “Gem Matching” genre, and it’s been a few years since a new installment arrived in the franchise. Magical Drop V hit Steam this week with the classic gameplay, but flashy new graphics.
Along the lines of Bubble Bobble, Magical Drop gives players a screen with colored gems that slowly descend from the ceiling. Players can pull bubbles from one row and shoot them to another row. When three or more of the same color are lined up vertically, they disappear, along with any other bubbles of the same color that are touching them.
Rather than merely competing against an endless flow of bubbles, players are fighting an opponent, either controlled by AI or another player. Players have to prevent the rows of bubbles from reaching the bottom of the screen, or pop a set number of them before their opponent to win a match.
A key to winning is the use of “Combos”. If players can quickly pop bubbles several times in a few seconds, those bubbles are sent over to their opponent’s board. Using quick thinking and strategy, players can set up chain reactions that will flood their enemy with enough bubbles to fill their entire board; a quick victory for skilled players.
There’s a story holding Magical Drop together. It’s much like the story found in numerous fighting games: A tournament is being held for a coveted prize (The titular Magic Drop), and players choose from a list of 11 quirky, tarot-card themed anime characters, then compete against the others in a bubble-bursting competition.
Each character has their own little story, but this hardly matters at all. They exchange a few lines of clumsy dialog between matches, and that’s pretty much the extent of it. There’s an attempt at humor, and at giving the characters distinct personalities, but it’s so badly translated that it’s rarely comprehensible, and never entertaining.
These characters range from cute anime cats to sexy dominatrixes, each with different voice work and graphics during play. Aside from aesthetic differences, the bubbles will drop in a different pattern for each character. Most of them play the same way, but the varying patterns will give advanced players an extra level of strategy to master.
One of the characters, Bruce does have a drastically different control scheme. Instead of stacking matching colored bubbles, he throws projectiles that can pop bubbles. He has two different colored balls, and each matches one of the two types of bubbles that appear on his unique boards. This adds a little extra dose of variety to a game that can get repetitive.
The single-player aspect of Magical Drop V is fairly engrossing, but after a few hours most players will get the hang of it and crave greater challenges. Fortunately, Magical Drop V has extensive options for both local and online multiplayer. These include head-to-head competition for two players, but there’s also a 2 Versus 2 co-op mode that lets two friends team up against an AI team. And there’s a four-player brawl mode as well for some chaotic rumbling. While these modes are interesting, the two player versus is where the game feels most exciting.
Magical Drop V definitely isn’t out to reinvent this genre of casual game. It provides a competitive experience for fans of this sort of game, with a strong focus on fierce multiplayer.
Magical Drop V is out now for PC on Steam with console ports arriving in the future.
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