Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine

Way out of left field, I decided to crack into my Sonic Mega Collection compilation for the GameCube, and started things off with this 1993 puzzle game. First things first: this is a total Dr. Mario knock-off, and Dr. Mario was somewhat of a Tetris knock-off itself. Yes, the Mean Bean Machine is a second-tier knock-off. The game consists of 13 stages (opponents, really) and, unless one was included in the original instruction manual, zero story whatsoever. The object of each stage is to make your enemy's board fill up before yours does. To clear pieces from your board, you must connect four or more of the same color. The foursome will vanish, allowing gravity to pull down other blocks (beans?) into the vacant spaces left behind. Now, the only way to beat the game is to get combos. To do this, you have to set up your beans such that when one foursome is made, another one is made in the aftermath. Getting a combo will send a black unclearable bean into each slot on your opponent's board. If you're able to string together a two-fold combo, three such beans will hit each spot. And should you be able to get a combo of a higher order than that, well, you pretty much instantly win the game. I beat Dr. Robotnik himself with one such four-combo. In one fell swoop, he was gone. It was really sort of anticlimactic. The thing is, while making big combos results in a quick win, not making big combos results in a loss. Your success at this game is completely contingent upon your ability to set up such dastardly chain reactions. Before realizing this, I could get no farther than the 2nd level on the normal difficulty setting or the 3rd level on the easiest one. I would spend five minutes neatly cleaning up my board, laughing at my opponent and his two-thirds-full mess, when suddenly, an avalanche of black beans would tumble all over my orderly grid. It was infuriating. So, yeah. This is a one-trick game. But then, what would you expect from a knock-off's knock-off? Don't play this game until and unless you have already played yourself bored with Tetris and Dr. Mario, in that order.