Columns is a puzzle game that holds itself to the gravitas of an incredible epic that could only be found in early video games. It comes at you with this ancient Grecian theming, its songs are all named after the fates, its instruction manual presents it as an ancient game that civilizations past played for endless time, now transported for you to play and join in on HISTORY. And it's... a match three puzzler where you get stacks of three colored gems and can only change their order, not their orientation. In some ways, it's far more derivative and basic than titles that came before like Dr. Mario, and similar matching games to follow like Puyo Puyo or Wario's Woods, where your maneuverability and flexibility in dropping things down greatly enhances the game. Columns, by contrast, is incredibly basic in a way that even Tetris isn't, as the need to maneuver shapes in different ways is always overshadowed by simply looking to get three or more of a color paired.
... But that makes it easy to just keep going. Columns is a rather difficult game to lose, even as it speeds up, as just looking for some kind of diagonal match usually will lead to a big chain that lowers the stack even further. Even more purely than Tetris titles released in the same era, I think that Columns is very effective at breaking into a zen state, where time ceases to exist and you simply match the colors. And sometimes the stack will raise high - Columns accelerates in speed REALLY quickly so it's very easy to misplace - but it feels like less of a death sentence here as one good match causes a bunch of other good matches and brings it down with far less effort and stress than its contemporaries. Columns is a simple game that combines its theming and self-importance with the greatest of simplicity and accessibility and makes a shallow, but transfixing experience. You will either play it for ten minutes and be done with it forever or play it for a very long run and remember very little, but ultimately be content the whole time. I was the latter, and it felt very nice to do the minimum amount of thinking required to feel smart for a while.
... But that makes it easy to just keep going. Columns is a rather difficult game to lose, even as it speeds up, as just looking for some kind of diagonal match usually will lead to a big chain that lowers the stack even further. Even more purely than Tetris titles released in the same era, I think that Columns is very effective at breaking into a zen state, where time ceases to exist and you simply match the colors. And sometimes the stack will raise high - Columns accelerates in speed REALLY quickly so it's very easy to misplace - but it feels like less of a death sentence here as one good match causes a bunch of other good matches and brings it down with far less effort and stress than its contemporaries. Columns is a simple game that combines its theming and self-importance with the greatest of simplicity and accessibility and makes a shallow, but transfixing experience. You will either play it for ten minutes and be done with it forever or play it for a very long run and remember very little, but ultimately be content the whole time. I was the latter, and it felt very nice to do the minimum amount of thinking required to feel smart for a while.