StarSweep
At least we meet...
Developer: Axela
Platforms: Arcade, PlayStation
Release Date: JP: Oct. 30, 1997 NA: Jan. 31, 2001 EU: Sep. 25, 2000
At the start of 2024, I decided I really wanted to play more puzzle games and keep track of them all. StarSweep was the first game that I played as part of that, and I really couldn’t have picked a better one. Instant confirmation that yes, you should be playing as many games like this as you can! Also, the original title is just StarSweep, not Puzzle StarSweep. Publisher A1 Games tended to put the genre of a game on its front box art, and sometimes named the games they ported with simple genre titles as well, such as Boxing, Racing, Card Games, et cetera. I still call it that sometimes though because its funny.
StarSweep has some standout mechanics that I haven’t encountered in many other puzzle games. All of your pieces are three-by-one rectangles, with either one or both sides having a star on the end. You only make matches if two stars of the same color touch. These shapes can be unwieldy to stack, so thankfully you place them directly on the board with a cursor- a cute star shaped fish(?) spits them out into the spot you choose. Like some of my other favorites in the genre, you can continue to stack during matches. It's very satisfying to learn, and for whatever reason I’ve found it easier to wrap my head around building combos in StarSweep than in many other games. A quick countdown starts when your board fills- you can save yourself if you're quick, but matches become tense as you just barely scrape out of the countdown multiple times in a row.
StarSweep’s soundtrack, by Mitsuhiro Arisaka, is one of my favorite game soundtracks in general, especially the bombastic new arrangements in the Playstation version. The groovy Island of Rio is a particular favorite of mine that gets stuck in my head constantly. Sitora and Mint’s theme always makes me smile, and finally scraping through the final two levels while Robotize is blaring in the back is so essential to the experience.
I’m mostly familiar with the very budget (but charming) A1 release of StarSweep for the Playstation. However, I did find a fan retranslation while I was writing this! The plot is minimal but very cute either way. Sitora/Tia sets out and challenges a variety of characters to the game of StarSweep. There’s a goblin, there’s an ice cat, there’s two martial artist children, you know how it is. At the end you fight B-1, a cleaning robot, and its creator, the nefarious Doctor J! She's an evil space woman with a cyber arm who, in the A1 translation, gives one of my favorite textboxes in video games.
After a tough battle, we learn that Doctor J’s plan was to secretly destroy stars, and then have B-1 clean up all the stardust and take the credit for it? Well, it’s a good thing she didn’t do that. I love the Windows Solitaire bouncing deck effect B-1 here. It’s not in the A1 translation sadly, but there’s a lovely credits song to cap out a beautiful soundtrack. StarSweep was such a perfect game to officially start my puzzle game journey on. I’d like to play the arcade version and the cute-looking GameBoy port (with a puzzle mode!) sometime soon as well. I love this game a lot and it gets a hearty recommendation from me.
In the PlayStation version, you collect Stardust as you play through all the different modes, and unlock things like character bios and more characters in versus mode. The last unlock gives you an interesting alternate campaign where every character is replaced with multicolored cyclops creatures all named Benjamin. It’s incredible. I have not grinded enough Stardust to actually encounter Benjamin myself- something that I desperately need to do. If this site doesn’t have proper Benjamin documentation, then what’s the point!
Thank you for reading!
