OnePiece Mansion

First off, OnePiece Mansion has nothing to do with the anime ONE PIECE. If you found this site looking for the anime concerning ONE PIECE, I must apologize. You did, on the other hand, find a page about a really interesting Japanese puzzle game from Capcom.

The last puzzle game I was involved with from Capcom was Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo and Pocket Fighter, by association. If you know either game, you know what I mean. Anyway, I was cruising the video game store and saw this next to my arch-nemesis, SaGa Frontier. I shied away from the hellspawn and picked up this game, hoping it'd be another hit like the unstoppable Incredible Crisis. I took it home and played this game that was a refreshing change from the drop-and-break style of puzzle games: I was a landlord.
As pedestrian as it may seem, my being a landlord was precipitated by a challenge set before the main characters Polpe(pronounced "pole-pay") by an evil sheep named Chocopape(say "cho-ko-PAA-pey") who had kidnapped his sister Puchika and bet that he could not withstand the stress that goes with managing an apartment building and its tenants. Polpe wants his sister back and takes Chocopape up on his offer. Little did Polpe know that the members of the evil "Syndicate 5" were about to invade his new apartment building, under the mind control of Chocopape. Will Polpe be able to keep his "mansion" in one piece?

If you can think on the fly and deal with an onslaught of enemies at the same time, then this game is for you. The object of the game is to keep your tenants as long as you can and get them you pay you rent. All the tenants give off a certain vibe that contribute to the stress level in other apartments in your building in any combination of eight directions. Some characters give off good vibes that reduce stress, like pretty girl Ai(she projects in all 8 directions) and others give off bad vibes that increase stress, like the basketball star Joe Dunk(his dribbling causes stress to all lower apartments). The bad guys can come in and stress out your tenants unless you do the right thing and place stressful tenants around them to drive them out. That seems pretty interesting enough, until you have to fight the boss.
Bosses aren't a major staple in puzzle games, but since Syndicate 5 is all over your apartment complex, you'll have to best their top criminal agents. Some are powerful psychics who can disrupt you entire building and you'll have to fight them off with stressful tenants. The battles can get hairy and complicated, especially when you don't watch your money meter. If your tenents are stressed and move out, ou have no income for the things that need to be repaired(move-outs cost $1000) and you could end up broke with a GAME OVER for you.

Many would call this a stupid game, but to those masses, Tekken seems to fit the bill of intelligent gaming. NO.

Man, I wish I hadn't trader this game in for other things. It'd be a treat to show to others who think that the only puzzle game out there is Tetris. Tetris doesn't have stylized art to dazzle the senses nor the wackiness that is inherent in Japanese gaming.

It's not your typical game, so's I suggest you go and get it; OnePiece Mansion gets a rating of 8.

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