Cleopatra Fortune
Released: 1995
Pitch: Erase the blocks by lining them up or surrounding them with stones.
Cleopatra Fortune is a falling block puzzle game and a pretty cool one at that. There are several kinds of blocks which complicate things and really give the gameplay its personality. There are normal stones but also jewels, conffins, and mummies. Any kind of block will disappear if that kind is lined up horizontally but that's inefficient. The crux of the gameplay is surrounding the other types of blocks to make them disappear. Jewels and coffins must be totally enclosed by stone (and the wall counts) but the mummies must be enclosed with a jewel or coffin to disappear. As the blocks drop faster, things can get very hectic! But when something disappears, the blocks above it will fall into the new hole, as long as they fit. This can lead to some bacon-saving chains that clear large sections of the screen. But it doesn't feel random and that's important. You're making the choices that lead to these chains, even if that wasn't what you planned. Cleopatra Fortune is definitely one of the better dropping block puzzle games I've played!
I seem to remember liking this on the Taito collection.
Back in the final years of the original PlayStation, a lot of companies would release budget games that were only 10 to 20 bucks. I got a few of those, but one of them I missed was Cleopatra's Fortune. I saw it in stores, but it just had a generic picture of the King Tut coffin so I had no idea what kind of game it was. And then when I played it on the Taito collection, I was like, "Aw crap, I could've been playing this awesome puzzler years earlier!"
And of course, I'm sure you remember my other reply where I talked about how awesome the music was and that the main character in Cleopatra's Fortune is also in Puchi Carat, another Taito game that came out around that time.
I didn't know it got a standalone release. $10 to $20 is a good price for it though. But I would have been right there with you in dismissing a cover like that lol
As Cary said, I used to see the cover for this on PlayStation and it didn't seem interesting to me. Thankfully that Taito collection on PS2 helped me out. I love the intro music for the game too.