Near the end of the PS1's lifetime, tons a cheap budget games were released. Along side the budget releases, tons of kids games were released as well. The thought process behind this was Dad or older bother bought a PS2, and gave son or little brother their old PS1. There was blues clues, Land Before Time, Casper, Bratz, etc and etc released near the end of the system's life. And while Spin Jam has the appearance of a budget title released for kids to play, one poor design decision keeps it from being that puzzle game your kid brother could enjoy.
Spin Jam takes it's cues from Puzzle Bobble/Bust a move in that it has the same connect three of the same colored bubbles on the play field to make them disappear. The catch is, when you activate three bubbles of the same color, you have a small time count down till the bubbles pop which causes bubbles directly across from the popping bubbles to fly off the playing field toward colored flower peddles outside the field. The point is to match the color of the bubbles to the color of the pedals in order for the bubbles to be caught by the pedal. Hit the pedal with enough bubbles, and the pedal bursts. For the rainbow colored pedals, all colors of bubbles can be used to pop them. There are also various powerups that appear on the field some are helpful like bombs that explode to destroy more bubbles on the field, while other are harmful like one that slows or even reverses your movement.
If the field fills up with bubbles to the point they reach outside, those bubbles then become poisonous, and start infecting the bubbles around them. If the poisonous bubbles reach the center, it's game over. In order to stop the poisonous bubbles, you need to launch them off the play-field to shake the poison off of them, and transform them back to their original colors.
It takes a bit to learn, but once you get the hang of it, the game is, surprisingly addictive. I've had a ton of fun playing this game. One final gameplay element that I learned, only after reading the game's manual, because there is no indication of having this ability in the game is, is the blitz attack. As you pop bubbles and pedals in the game the launcher tube on the top right or bottom right of the screen, depending on which mode you are playing, will fill up with a blue bar. When the power gauge on the launcher fills up holding the X button with either launch a barrage of bombs to clear the playing field in the arcade mode (this is helpful in the case that the poison bubbles are about to reach the center and cause a game over), or will unleash a blitz attack on your opponent in verses mode. When hit with a blitz attack, for a limited time, the flower pedals on you opponent's playing field turn clear, preventing them from being popped to send more bubbles and traps your way.
The game offers an arcade mode which is sort of the endless mode. The arcade mode rules are simple, keep playing each level until you pop all the pedals on the outside of the play field and you move to the next level. As in tetris, the game starts throwing more at you at a faster rate the higher the level. When you run out of continues, yes, continues in the endless mode, your game is over. The arcade mode is really fun and it gets difficult pretty quickly.
The verses mode is you and a friend duking it out for trash talking rights. You can even get a couple of friends in on the action and make your own friendly tournament out of it. Most of the replay value for the game lies here in the multiplayer aspect and the arcade mode.
The final mode is the story mode. It's sort of like the fighting game portion where you take on every character in the game in verses mode trying to work your way up to Moonlabs, the end boss. The problem being, for no good reason, there are no continues whatsoever in this mode. That's right, the arcade mode give players 4 continues, but, by design, the story mode give you one life, and no continues going against some of the most merciless opponents in a puzzle game I have ever played.
At first, I didn't know about blitz attack, I just knew that my opponents would do it to me. I thought I was just terrible at the game, which I'm certainly not great by any stretch. I failed dozens of times trying to beat the story mode on Easy difficulty. Yes, easy difficulty. When I discovered the Blitz attack, I was like, “Oh that's how you're supposed to do beat them,” but nope, still no chance. I've beaten a few of them, but the brain-dead idea of giving you no continues in the story mode and having cutthroat opponents, even on easy difficulty makes the story mode Impossible for me to beat, even once. I won't say the game is impossible to beat, but it is impossible for me to beat.
I have spent an entire day trying to beat what looks to be a children's puzzle game to no avail. One mess up, and you are kicked back out to the title screen. I have had fun playing the story mode, and have gotten relatively far into it, but the lack of even so much as one continue makes completing the story mode brutally hard, and for no reason. The game didn't have to be this hard, especially on easy mode. I know I'm not the best at it, but I've spent an entire day trying to beat the story mode, and I give up. I will never beat it, and without the use of an action replay, will never be able to unlock any of the hidden characters in the game either.
It's a shame, because the rest of the game is a ton of fun. This is a well made, addictive puzzler with charming 2D sprite graphics, tight controls, well done sound effects, and music that is well done but also low key enough that I had to go back and play the game again to notice it which is perfect for a puzzle game like this. It's well composed enough that you can listen to it for hours and it doesn't get old but also isn't a distraction. It's just kind of there.
This is a fun game that's still around the $10 asking price with shipping on ebay. The arcade mode and the verses against a friend modes are the parts where you'll get your cheap money's worth out of this game. If they story mode wasn't made stupidly hard thanks to one bad design choice, I would herald this game as an underrated puzzle gem. It is fun, it is well design, and it is worth it for cheap, I just wish the developers wouldn't have completely hampered the overall experience with a mostly impossible story mode. As it stands, this isn't the underrated gem it could have been, it's a flawed game that still has some really fun parts to it. If you find it in the bargain bin it's worth playing, especially if you have a friend to play against. Spin Jam is a fun, but flawed game.
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