PUZZLE GAMES OF 1996 DIDN'T LISTEN ENOUGH. they should have copied wholesale the subtle mechanical innovations other games made at the time: double-tap to swap 180 degrees, garbage cancelling/nullification, pieces with distinct designs per-character AND little eyes on them that look like they're hanging out. Enter Karian Cross! For all the talk of the 'Dark Ages' of the '90s South Korean game dev scene, with rampant bootlegs and plagiarism (we'll discuss later), this game steals wisely AND is deliciously devoted to its originality. The characters are cute, doofy, and memorable; their sprite representations are extremely weird but also memorable in their own gangly manner. The drop tables aren't balanced perfectly, but whose were? This is the closest a game has gotten to making me like Taisen Puzzle-dama. i'm not entirely sure, but i think that the multiplayer cheats in higher levels by giving the opponents a damage multiplier -- or Warok and Dorf just do more damge with their attacks for some reason? unfortunate, but unlike some games i won't mention, i don't feel betrayed. the whole is still good; it's not a bad game with good parts, it's a good game with bad parts.