This week's game is Ultimate Block Party, an early PSP puzzle game that had the misfortune of coming out shortly after Lumines. Give it a chance, though, and you'll find a puzzle game with lots of charm, quite deep mechanics, and genuine party vibes:
You can't help but feel bad for a game in the same genre as a killer app that released shortly after said killer app. Unflattering comparisons are inevitable, people are more likely to rally behind the more popular thing regardless of whether or not it's "better", and your chances of being a success become all the more difficult. Ultimate Block Party's misfortune is fascinating on its own, but it's also worth looking at as a legitimately good puzzle game that's doing some different things. It's mechanically rich in interesting ways, such as having to make and build up on combos as quickly as possible, having to fend off attacks and form your own based on the colors of the blocks matched, and also allowing you to bring more blocks to your side at any time, which can both help and hinder you. The presentation is great as well, featuring very goofy characters, loud and exciting music, and a comic book style that really works for it. Everything about this game merges to create a game that, intentionally or not, really does feel like a party! I'm not surprised this one never got to have a competitive scene, but I honestly think there's a lot of potential here for such a thing, so if you're the kind of person who likes to explore obscure puzzle games, you should be adding this one to your list.
This game released as Kollon in Japan (and "Koloomn" in Europe) and I've long wondered whether that title was a deliberate allusion to Sega's Columns, given that it was designed by OG Sega Columns designer Hisaki Nimiya. yes yes, rotatey game, ofc it's named what it's named, but it's such a dull name that I can't imagine they would have gone with it if not for the entendre
btw, Ultimate Block Party is actually the revision, and is titled Korokoro Kollon in Japan—for as slight as UBP might feel, the first JP-only Kollon PSP is missing a bunch of stuff, including multiplayer and any sort of no-CPU solo mode; it was a super-cheap launch title in Japan and might as well have launched straight to bargain bins, and I wouldn't be shocked if there are still tons of em around. (On the flipside, an unopened copy of Taisen! Kato-chan no Kororonpe!, the reskinned Kato-chan version they made for DS, is currently worth ¥25k+.)