Discussion
Baku Baku is essentially Puzzle Fighter before Puzzle Fighter ever existed, with one small catch. In Baku Baku, there is no crash Gem per se - there are two halves to a complete piece. You must match each colored food to the matching animal head. Rabbits get carrots, pandas get bamboo, and so on. What separates this from Puzzle Fighter is that the same half can not remove it's self, where in Capcom's game a Crash Gem would remove another Crash Gem.

This provides Baku Baku with a slight advantage in the planning department. Rather than worrying about the cancellation issue, you can stack said matching pieces in any shapes you choose so long as the food and face don't touch. When they do, the face can eat as many of the matching color as there are touching. This is where the game gets rather creepy. The animal faces will pop out as a severed head and gobble up all allowed blocks. Imagine Pac-Man as an animal face and you get the idea.

There is a 1-Player Story and Exam Mode, and then 2-Player Versus. Standard fair along with the usual Options and ever too bouncy Japanese music scores round out the package. Baku Baku can get very challenging early on, so puzzle enthusiasts looking for a good fix should check this game out as soon as possible. It may not have Bejeweled's marketing or Tetris' legacy, but it does have a good thing going. w

• There is no trivia for this game.