Pieces

Pieces

SNES - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Prism Kikaku Publisher Hori Electric, Atlus Published 1994-07-22 Platforms SNES Genres Active puzzle, Jigsaw puzzle, Passive puzzle, Puzzle Themes Cartoon Series Jigsaw Party Multiplayer Simultaneous co-op, Simultaneous versus Distribution Commercial

Pieces is a competitive jigsaw puzzle video game developed by Prism Kikaku and published in Japan by Hori Electric for the SNES on 1994-07-22, and later that year by Atlus in the USA. The game was followed up by Jigsaw Madness.

In Japan, the game targeted teenage boys with several puzzles depicting young women in vulnerable positions, but these were eliminated for the US release which took a more family friendly approach.

Personal

Own?	Yes. SNES USA with cartridge, box, and manual.
Won?	Yes. US release - Vs. mode on easy difficulty, solo "all play" on hard difficulty all categories.
Finished	2024-06-28.

When my friend Jonathan was selling off most of his video game collection, he had a boxed copy of this game. Although I had never heard of it, I thought it looked interesting, so I bought it from him. It turned out to be a pretty interesting game.

Review

6	6	7	5	9

Best Version: SNES

Good

• There are several game modes including two-player versus, versus AI, and "all play" where up to 5 players can work on the same puzzle together either competitively or cooperatively.
• Although plenty of jigsaw puzzle video games came before it, this was, to my knowledge, the first to have an enjoyable competitive experience.
• Having the various power-ups and ways to mess with your opponents really adds to the chaos of the versus games.
• The music, composed by Nobuyuki Hara, is fitting to the game.
• The developers added support for the SNES Mouse and the Super Multitap.
• I like the various silly opponents in versus mode. The award ceremonies with the puzzle pieces are cute too.
• The extra pieces in the hard mode "all play" add some complexity to the mix.
• The spot the difference minigame is a nice break.

Bad

• While I like the fact that the player can speed up their cursor by holding down different buttons, I would actually prefer the fast movement to be the norm rather than the exception. Moving at slower normal speed in the harder difficulties is pretty much a guaranteed loss, so you're forced to keep a button held down the entire time you're playing.
• Even easy difficulty is really hard in versus mode against the AI, primarily because you're given a different puzzle each time you retry, so you can't memorize the position of the pieces.
• Unlike a real jigsaw puzzle, where the shape of the piece clues you in on where it should go, in this game, the shape of the pieces are all visually interchangeable — that is, all regular horizontal pieces have an identical shape, as do all regular vertical pieces. This means, you primarily have to go on the content of the picture to determine where a piece should be placed. It's not a huge problem since the puzzles are so small, but it is still a downside.
• The power-up which causes your opponent to have inverted controls doesn't hinder the AI. It should have at leased caused the AI to randomly move every few seconds.
• Although there are 56 puzzles — a decent achievement for a console not meant to handle large amounts of unique graphics — I still didn't think there were enough. There is also a lot of overlap in the categories. For example, the animation category has dinosaurs and sports even though there are already categories for dinosaurs and sports.
• The category for young women in vulnerable poses in the Japanese original seems inappropriate for a game clearly targeted at children.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Box Art

• 

  Super Famicom - Japan. The game's characters have found the missing piece for the dinosaur's nose! My preferred cover.

• 

  SNES - USA. An anthropomorphic jigsaw piece runs from a broom and no sign while the whole thing is embossed with a jigsaw map. A bit unusual.

Videos

Longplay - Versus - Easy difficulty.

Game Play - All play - Animation - Solo.

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	Two of the AI opponents are women as is the hostess, but they're not strong. There is also an entire category for young women in vulnerable poses.
Bechdel test?	Fail	Almost. There is a girl who explains the rules to the minigame.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	There is a black basketball player, but it's only one puzzle out of many. There is also an insensitive depiction of Native Americans in one puzzle.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no characters.

Titles

The Japanese title makes a lot more sense.

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Pieces
Japanese	ジグソーパ〜ティ〜	Jiguso Pa〜ti〜	Jigsaw Party

Links