PlayStation Basement #29 - Builder's Block

This review was originally published on the Console Purist Facebook group on March 16th, 2019. It has been edited slightly for formatting.

Happy Saturday, and welcome back to PlayStation Basement! Every Saturday I am here reviewing an odd or obscure game for the original PlayStation. My reviews are intended to de-emphasize the standard point system you see in a lot of video game reviews, so I use a nine-point scale where 9-7 is Good, 6-4 is Neutral, and 3-1 is Bad. The emphasis is on the word used, not so much the number.

Today is St. Patrick’s Day in the United States. I don’t have any game related to Ireland or to fairies today. Since, it is close to spring, and spring is a time of new beginnings, I’m going to talk about a game about building and creation. It’s not Sim City 2000 or Theme Park but Builder’s Block. This Taito-developed game was known as Land Maker when it was released to Japanese arcades in 1998. It was later ported to Japanese and European PlayStations on December 9^th, 1999 and September 30^th, 2000 under the same name respectively. The North American release, published by Jaleco, was in-between the two on July 12^th, 2000 as Builder’s Block. The game is a puzzle game sort of like Puyo Puyo with a city-building theme.

The cover art to Builder’s Block is pretty weird, somewhat generic, and overall appealing to me. There are mountains in the distance, a checkerboard floor, and some simple polygon buildings in the foreground. The closest section of buildings is a nice blue color and breaking apart. The Japanese art shows the title growing out of the checkerboard with a stark background wave. It’s kind of hard to read, but there is the title in plain text right below it. The double-title is kind of goofy. The European cover art shows a big city with googly-eyed magicians popping out of it. The overall image quality is kind of low, especially with that pale gradient background.

The in-game graphics for Builder’s Block resemble the North American art the most. Now, the game is divided in two different styles. One style, used by the Puzzle Mode, is 3D with modern building designs and photographic visuals of city pop-esque resort art. The other style, used in the Arcade Mode port, uses pixel artwork of mythical and medieval buildings, often resembling temples and pagodas, with Yoshitaka Amano, or perhaps the artist from “Saiyuki: Journey West”, character art. These characters are also of a mythical nature. I like both styles here, especially the colors of the 2D style.

Builder’s Block features musick of various sorts by Taito’s legendary team Zuntata. It various from grooving city pop, cool ambience, to more traditional Indian and Chinese musical fare. The sound effects are snappy and bright, with some weird chatter from the citizens of the Puzzle Mode that resembles a laugh track. The sound really helps bring these cities to life.

As mentioned above, Builder’s Block has two different single-player modes: the Puzzle Mode and the Arcade Mode. There is also a versus mode that uses the graphics from the Puzzle Mode. The Puzzle Mode has the player start with so many blocks on the board and has a goal building size to reach. Constructing larger buildings or multiple buildings helps to increase your score. The Arcade Mode is a versus mode with each player constructing buildings and then dismantling them to hurt the opponent. Clearing larger buildings limits the opponents space and sends blocks of your color to their side. Both of these will bring about some amount of pressure, leading them closer to defeat.

The basic gameplay is the same in modes. Like in “Tetris”, the player gets one piece at a time. Pieces must be aimed and launched onto the board. Pieces can ricochet off of already set pieces. Setting multiple pieces together of the same color will create a building. Buildings get larger for each size square they create (2x2, 3x3, 4x4, etc.) and grant special powerups and further destruction to the enemy after clearing. You clear a building by launching a matching piece into the diagonal, glowing edge of the existing pieces. Launching a different colored piece at a building will change the adjacent pieces to match the new pieces color. I am sorry if this sounds somewhat confusing, but it is easy once you get the hang of it.

Getting the hang of it is a small hurdle with “Builder’s Block”. The manual does a poor job of explaining the game and mostly sticks to showing large diagrams of the play area, despite these diagrams being relatively the same. I was able to clear the Arcade Mode with the knowledge I acquired by playing the game, but there are still things I do not know about, such as the attack patterns of the Arcade Mode characters. I also found luck to be a major found in the starting scenario for each level in Arcade Mode. While the Arcade Mode was exhilarating, the Puzzle Mode is a bit long. There are 12 different cities with 18 levels each. Though there are a lot of different and interesting challenges of varying difficulties, Puzzle Mode is for the long haul.

Overall I liked “Builder’s Block” a lot. While I enjoyed the Arcade Mode the most, finding the mystical and quasi-religious characters and worlds very interesting, the Puzzle Mode is a slow, more leisurely game that is also enjoyable. This game will be a totally new experience for many players; I don’t think I have ever played anything that is particularly similar to “Builder’s Block”. It is a worthy addition to a PlayStation library.

“Builder’s Block” receives a Good (9).

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