Columns II?

[Chakat Tailswisher]

So, I just bought the Humble Bundle Ocean Day Bundle and got Columns and Columns 3, but I can't find any information about Columns 2 on google or Steam. What is up with that? Did Sega just lose the liscence to it? Was it a bad sequel? I'm just curious because my OCD bugs me when I go from 1 to 3. XD

[Panda o' Plenty]

It was Arcade-only game that Sega never ported to the Genesis.
And yea, all of this collection are just Sega Mega Drive / Genesis games. (unless Sonic CD)

And you see, the arcade version of original Columns had only one mode: just your usual arcade where you survive as long as possible.
However, when they brought the first Columns to consoles, they added few new gameplay modes, one of them being Flash mode: the field is already filled with gems and you need to reach and destroy a certain gem that is buried deep down.

Columns 2 was pretty much a port of few modes: you could select between Flash or Versus. So yea, while it was giving something new in arcades, the port of it would have been too similar to what Columns on consoles already offers. Tough sell at the time.

At least this is what I think, maybe Sega had different throughts about it, who knows.

Of course there is some difference from Columns. Graphics/sound/presentation isn't just port.
In Flash it also sometimes randomly turns some gems into skull blocks, which raises the height of the floor if destroyed. Or sometimes you had to destroy 2 gems.
And in Versus any successful destruction of more than 3 gems seem to raise opponent's floor. Pretty nice, seeing how in Columns 1 there was no way to interact with opponent in Versus.
Plus some weird bonus stage.

But hey, Genesis players already got their own full-on-interaction competetive Versus-dedicated Columns with Columns 3 that was Genesis exclusive, ha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR9kEDau4Ns

[***Konnica]

keys 5K3KC-7G3ET-XHC2_
_=two

[Chakat Tailswisher]

Originally posted by ***Konnica:

keys 5K3KC-7G3ET-XHC2_
_=two

I'm not sure what this code is for, Konnica, but I seem to already own it. Regardless, thank you for being nice.

And, Foxysen, thank you for the breakdown. I was just curious as I had never played the Columns games, let alone in an arcade, so I didn't know anything about the history of the series. ^^ I love learning more about gaming history.

[Panda o' Plenty]

The site SegaRetro has been doing a good job at keeping any Sega related things in check, it's sort of a wiki. I recommend you to look there sometimes.

http://segaretro.org/Columns

[Ishraqiyun]

Originally posted by ***Konnica:

keys 5K3KC-7G3ET-XHC2_
_=two

Thank you for that key - I didn't have Columns.