izigame.me

I really wish Steam had something other than thumbs up and thumbs down, as I have mostly enjoyed Magical Drop VI, but I have to give it a thumbs down because it has major flaws that will ultimately make me walk away from the game. First off, this entry is MUCH better than Magical Drop V. Graphically and musically, it is more in line with Magical Drop III, which is, by far, the best of the Magical Drop series. In fact, it *almost* looks like it could be a remake of MD3, but alas it is not. The action in the gameplay is top notch, except for the slow progress in the story mode. You sit through slow screen transitions, and slow bad dialogue. Dialogue skip takes you to a different screen to confirm you want to skip the dialogue! Ugh, it makes the story mode a piss poor gaming experience. dialogue, round 1, more dialogue, round 2, more dialogue, round 3, more dialogue, a puzzle, another puzzle, rinse, repeat. The worst part is if you fail at the rounds against the NPCs, it's game over, start again! There REALLY needs to be a continue or retry option! Absent is a proper arcade mode like in MD3. The closest to that experience is Match, except that VAST MAJORITY of selectible characters has to be unlocked through arbitrary achievements, and oh yea, unlike the prior MD entries, a single loss on Match is GAME OVER - start again! Survival mode is somewhat interesting. You have to score 100,000 points in survival to unlock Caravan mode, which is just survival with a time limit. Then there's Path of Destiny, a multi player boring board game iterpretation of the Story mode against other CPU players, complete with CPU using some item to trade places with you when you get far ahead, and at some point the game mode decided I had enough and gave me a game over despite that no players ever reached the end goal. Finally there is Puzzle mode where you have to figure out how to clear the screen using the fewest moves possible within a time limit. This was the most interesting of the game modes. The problem with MD6 is the developers don't seem to really understand what made MD3 a hit. The fast paced action and rounds are slowed down and blocked by constant game overs and restarts, and all the senseless and useless griding to unlock the characters you can play with, and many of the unlocks are just based that you have to be extremely good and also extremely lucky at grinding in the game. Many of the mini game puzzles in the story mode or Path of Destine, such as collecting 40 of a certain color in 30 seconds really are not well balanced and it comes down to luck of the draw that you get enough of a color for the puzzle to even be possible.

MD6 is SO INCREDIBLY CLOSE to being an excellent game, but the director and/or producers completely bothched the execution. Instead of letting people play and enjoy the game. The Magical Drop series always had a lot of replayability already, as puzzle games with fast and frantic are addictive in and of themselves. Crippling the game behind tediously unlockable characters and, for the love of pete, game over and slow screens and tedious restarting and playing from the first encounter just craps all over the game. It makes a game series that is fun and addictive to play and slows it down with tedious grinding. That type of game design is downright archaic by today's standards.

I also tried multiplayer, but I could never see any rooms or other players to connect with. I am not sure if that is because I am playing on Linux, or of MD6 is just so unpopular and undermarketed that there really is just no one waiting online to play. Undermarketed is certainly at play here, as I had no clue MD6 even existed until well past a year after its release.

Unlocking all of the characters should be easily attainable. Perhaps most could be unlocked by beating them. Well, that is SORT of the case. As you play through story mode and beat characters, they become unlocked as opponents in Match mode.. But, no, you still cannot play with them, which means when you try to play Match mode, for the most arcade-like experience of MD3, you get 2 or 3 battles in and get the "Oh, game over because you didn't unlock the next character yet! Go play Story mode some more to unlock them!" It was downright baffling why the director/producers chose this concept. I guess the thought is it gets players playing more of the game, and somehow serves a function of more replayability or motivates players to keep playing and unlocking the game, but in execution it is just damned tedious.

And let's talk about the difficulty settings... Easy is not really any easier - it just cripples the game. You only can go so far in Match or Story mode in Easy difficulty, but the game really doesn't seem terribly different from Normal difficulty. Hard dofficulty is a little harder - mostly just the puzzles become MORE tedious (7 chains instead of 5, or get 40 of a single color instead of 30)

Hidden characters were great in MD3, Black Pierrot, Moon, Hanged Man, etc. Now these hidden characters are just there, they are not hidden characters anymore, but they are just locked till you fight them in story mode, and then it only allows you to progress further in Match mode, which STILL gives an instant game over upon the first loss. No retry, no switching to other characters that may be better against the challenge, bleagh

The developers could still fix MD6. Add a proper Arcade mode (Basically Match mode with RETRY instead of GAME OVER), make the majority of characters completely unlock when you first defeat them instead of hiding the unlocks behind tedious BS goals! That is basically it! Two things! Add RETRY or CONTINUE options, and UNLOCK the regular characters (or make them easily unlockable through natural play for the mode you are in!)

Overall, MD6 is almost so great - a much better entry than MD5, but it's still a miss for me.