Puyo Pop Fever meets pure hentai...is that even legal?

-Front Of Regular Porindama-
It Shows The
14 Female Characters

-Front Of Porindama Online-
It Shows The 8 New
Characters Added To The Roster

How Can The Porin Hold
The Bag With No Hands?

If Porindama Was Part Of
Comiket 68, It May Be
In The Catalog Shown

Porindama Has Characters Based
Off Of This Popular MMORPG

Ragnarok Online Is Based Off
Of The Manhwa (Korean Name
For Manga) By Lee Myung-Jin.

Besides The Ordinary Porins,
You Will Get A Big Porin
That Equals Four Of That Color

--------ABOUT PORINDAMA--------

Ever heard of "Comiket"? If so, you know that it is the world's largest comic convention and it is held twice a year in Tokyo, Japan. It's a bright and festive event filled with cosplayers; People who dress up as their favorite game or anime characters. Comiket isn't just known for cosplayers though...it's also known for the sale of unusual "doujin" (often used when referring to self-published Japanese works) and other cool items and collectibles. The first CM (Comiket) was held in December of 1975 and the latest comiket event will be comiket 74 in August of 2008. However, Porindama, the game that I will discuss today, was scheduled for comiket 68 (according to insertcredit.com) back in 2005. Despite the fact that Porindama is known in small circles on the internet, the game continues to turn up little information in a search...I just hope this article changes that.

I will give credit where credit is due; Cosplay Teahouse Soft's creation is pure genius. Porindama has characters based off of the immensely popular MMORPG, Ragnarok Online (based on the manhwa titled "Ragnarok" by Lee Myung-Jin), and puts them into an action puzzle title...but that's not all. Anyone who is familiar with Ragnarok Online may tell you that there are some fine looking anime babes in that game. Of course, CTS knew this and decided to put many beautiful female characters in the game. The game also plays like the popular "Puyo Pop Fever" and to put the cherry on top of the cake, there is nudity. If you've wanted to see RO characters get into obscene sexual situations, this game will seem like a dream come true...because this game is what is known as an "eroge" type of game. Porindama also falls into what is known as the "harem" genre; One guy who gets with many girls that eventually like him. As the Game Master [777] Lance, you patrol the area and run into various RO characters like the Knight, Priest, Magician, Assassin, Hunter, Alchemist, Monk, Dancer, and others as you challenge them to a game of "Porindama" and win your prize from them; the chance to get Lance what he wants (which should be obvious). The girls are of various types...one girl has bird wings, another has cat ears, another one is a succubus, blah, blah, blah. The game has sexual scenes with just about all of the staple races.

While the game may seem like a sleazy idea on the surface, I was refreshed when I actually started to play the game. No...I'm not referring to...you know...THAT kind of refreshed. Porindama is actually a product that used popular concepts and executed them rather well instead of taking the easy way out and making any sort of quick bucks. The visuals are sharp and very colorful and the anime CGs are quite well done. There are a couple that seem amateurish, but they are pretty good as a whole. If you are familiar with the popular hentai game publisher and developer, Elf (LINK VERY UNSAFE FOR WORK), then the art style may come off as primitive compared to the highly detailed characters found in many of Elf's games. However, Elf has been in the business for years and are experts in their craft. Considering that, Porindama's CGs are considerably better than some other game CGs that I've seen. The animation is smooth and there are a few neat special effects (such as a character casting a spell) during rapid chain sessions, though it would have been nice if the characters also animated a little rather than striking different poses with anime stills during in-game actions.

While the visuals are decent, I actually liked the music more than the graphics. With an eclectic mix of instruments including the flute, piano, harp, percussion, and more, I found the music to be very top notch. There is some jazz, oriental, and even a little heavy metal too. CTS's music producers did a good job at creating a rich blend of unusual tunes to enhance the appeal of the game. Hell, I wouldn't mind if the music producers got hired by some of the big names in the gaming biz like Capcom or Square Enix. While the music is very well composed, the sound effects are a little less so. As you play, the characters will constantly speak whenever you pull off any sort of chain. Still, this is typical in a lot of action puzzlers (even my beloved Tetris Attack...) so while it may irk some, it shouldn't bother those that like games like Puyo Pop Fever.

........So you might be wondering...what in the WORLD is Puyo Pop Fever and what relationship does it share with Porindama? Well, you're about to find out...since Porindama is very similar to it as well as other popular falling object puzzle games. You see, the object of Porindama is to match four "Porins" that are the same in color. By doing so, you eliminate them and create "junk" porins for the computer to deal with. Junk porins are what you attack your opponent with because junk porins can't eliminate themselves, no matter how many junk porins are matched together. An opponent can destroy junk porins by matching four porins of the same color next to a junk porin. You will get porins to come from the top of the screen, but if you fill the opponents side of the screen with enough junk porins to the point where they can't even get another porin onto their side of the screen, you win. By creating intricate stacks of porins, you can cause chains and you can see what porins you will receive in the middle of the screen to help you plan ahead. Chains occur when eliminating one group of porins which, in turn, leads to the elimination of another group of porins. For example, if you match together four blue porins and four yellow porins match together as a result of matching the four blue ones, you've created a chain.

Chains are powerful and you want to make as many as you can...however, there is a catch. Whenever you match four porins together to attack your opponent, they have a chance to counter if they can successfully match four porins back. If you match four and the opponent matches four, you should be even...right?....WRONG. Whenever this happens, you are actually helping your opponent. If their junk porin counter displays any junk porins in it while they are matching their porins together, they get "fever" power...and if they get seven fever points, they enter fever mode. Fever mode is your ultimate weapon and your opponent's worse nightmare. During fever mode, you will get a pre-created stack of porins to create super easy chain combinations. Besides allowing you to easily drown your opponent in junk porins, getting really wicked chains allows characters to cast special spells that have different effects depending on the character. One spell may cover your side of the screen in a thick fog to make it harder to see...another spell will freeze porins in ice, making them obstacles in your path. There are other spells besides the ones mentioned too that vary from character to character and have different effects...try doing a 9 or 10 chain for disastrous magic. This means that picking characters also has an impact on the gameplay.

The game has 15 characters, though only 14 of them are playable in the play mode. You can only control Lance in the story mode. The game also has a tutorial and basic options to change difficulty, sound volume, and such. The game has an extra mode where you can view any story related CGs you have unlocked, but the extras could have been a little better than that.

--------ABOUT PORINDAMA ONLINE--------

Released sometime in 2005, CTS decides to take it to the next level; They wanted to make Porindama playable online...and Porindama Online was born. A lot of people I know simply think that Porindama Online is nothing more than a name change and the ability to play online in the network mode (either by an account or a known IP address), but that isn't exactly true. Porindama Online is actually an update both in terms of graphics and gameplay. The game also has three new BGMs added to the roster for a total of 16 (Porindama had 13). There is a new track (BGM #14) in Porindama Online titled "Purity of your Smile - Arrange Ver. -"...man, that is a terrific piece of music right there...a remarkable rhythm from start to finish. The graphics have been touched up to make text easier to read, but more importantly, the anime characters aren't always still in battles anymore. They have been given animations to make the game seem more...well...animated. The game also uses a map during story mode to show you where Lance travels, though it isn't all too relevant (and further illustrates how much of a Puyo Pop clone this game is).

As far as gameplay, you can now change the "RGB" (Red/Green/Blue) configuration of porins in the options mode so you can have some freaky looking porins being used during play. The game also has a nicely reworked extra mode that allows you to see CGs as well as individual character states (their basic animated state, victory pose, etc) and you can also listen to the music this time around. Along with this, the game has a "Single Mode" that allows you to practice and functions similar to the "Endless" mode of a Tetris game (I'm thinking Tetris Attack in particular). The most notable new addition besides the network mode though is that the game introduces 8 new characters; Acolyte, Game Master (Like Lance, though female), Kapura, High Priest, Super Novice, Lord Knight, High Wizard, and Assassin Cross. You can play the story that had the 15 original characters or you can play the new story that deals with the 8 new characters.

--------EXTRA THINGS ABOUT BOTH GAMES--------

Both Games have a versus mode, Tutorial mode, and replay mode. You must have an external joystick in order to play two-player mode without the network option...I hit all the keys on my keyboard and didn't find a keyboard control setup for player 2. If you have a USB joystick plugged in, you can configure it to play 2-players. The replay mode...I couldn't get to work in either game. I'm probably just doing something wrong, but I when the game asks you to save the replay after a versus game or such, I would hit "hai" (yes) and I thought my replay would be saved...but it didn't. Otherwise the games I have play very well on my computer. Just so you know, I am using a Dell (Pentium 4) with Windows XP. It has 256MB Ram and 1.80GHz as well as 150Gigs of storage. I know that pales in comparison to many computers out there, but if mine plays the game with few problems (occasionally crashes since I'm running other programs while playing), you should be fine. If the game is running slowly, you can change the "bit" setting to 16bit (the default is 32bit) for faster performance with some loss in color information when the game is starting up. You can also configure joypad controls (assuming one is plugged in), see the FPS (Frames Per Second) during play, and decide to play the game in fullscreen or windowed mode...and you can get into the top 10 score rankings too...yeah, I'm done.

{NOTE: Keyboard Controls for 1-Player - [z = select/OK/rotate porin] [x = cancel/quit/rotate porin] [c = pause game during play] [alt = freezes screen (for screenshot purposes)]}

--------SUMMARY--------

I'll be honest with you; I think that both games are solid and addictive. After all, since the gameplay is generally the same as Puyo Pop Fever, how could it fail? Porindama and Porindama Online also have awesome soundtracks and respectable visuals. If you like h-games, you definitely don't want to miss out on these games. Unfortunately, I won't tell you where to find them HERE, but you might be able to find it with a quick google search. Porindama is a decent game, but Porindama Online is the game you really want to play. With Porindama Online, there is no real need for Porindama...unless you want it for novelty. Both are decent games, which just means that not all adult games suck.

- Written by Vyse the determined -