Magical Drop (1995)

Magical Drop is a 1995 competitive arcade puzzle game created by Data East Corporation. It is the inaugural game of the Magical Drop series. Magical Drop is based on a game called Drop-Drop created by Russ Ltd, a Russian company. The arcade game received an updated version named Magical Drop Plus 1! that features aesthetic improvements and also introduces a "Solo Play" mode. Magical Drop Plus 1! was released in North America and Europe as Chain Reaction; in this version, the puzzle pieces are changed from spherical Drops to various items (such as food or celestial bodies) and the character-unique voice acting is replaced by a single male narrator. All versions of the original arcade game were developed for Data East's "MLC" arcade hardware.

Storyline

There are 24 characters, all but the Black Pierrot being named after a tarot card (although the Strength card has been represented by two characters throughout the series). Different characters have different attack patterns. The columns of the opponent's stack will descend at different rates relative to each other depending on the character chosen. This causes a disjunction of colors that may make it more difficult for the other player to clear their stack. For example, with the character Devil, all the columns will descend at the same rate, whereas with Sun, the middle columns will descend faster than the others.