Magical Drop 3 Who Are They?!

    So you're curious who those characters are over there on the left. Well, I've had them on my page since its start, and figured I'd keep them. They come from a NeoGeo game called "Magical Drop 3". NeoGeo was (still is?) an arcade system that - unlike most games out there today - could be changed by simply changing a cartridge. Much like cartridges of the older game systems, but it had many advanced features that you still don't find today. For example, if you had a home NeoGeo system and owned a game that the arcade had in it's gameroom, you could take your save-game card - a credit card-sized smart card - to the arcade. Plug the card into the arcade game, and continue your game. Save it, then take it home, and continue there. There wee also headphone jacks so you could play your game and listen to it without all the ambience.
     The downside was that arcade graphics and sound progressed at a very rapid pace, and within two years, the graphics engine processor was outdated.

    Magical Drop 3 was a Data East (remember them? They also made Pinball machines!) title, originally released over in Japan. Based on the whole Tetris popularity, it was a simple puzzle game. In short, rows of colored balls (balloons) would work their way down to the bottom of the screen. You had to stop them. To pop the balls, you had to get three of the same color in a vertical row. You controlled a little jester that could pick up unlimited number of same-colored balls,  and throw them back on a different column. As balls would pop, they'd fall up, filling in the empty spaces. If that, in turn, made some that would pop, you got a combo. Simple, and rather addictive. Since the game was developed in Japan, of course you have characters and story and little nuances. Characters are based off a Tarot deck, and depending on who you pick they affect your jester. Some character can move side to side really fast, but pick up and let go of balls rather slowly. Others slow down depending on how many they carry at once, and so on. When the game is in Japan mode, even the single-player battle against CPU mode has a story with it. English mode has no story, and the normal 'story mode' is rather short. (Just shows the differences in culture.)

    Anyways, here's a list of all the characters in the game, in their "victory" poses. They appear randomly in the navigation pane at the left.

The Chariot	Death	The Devil
The Emperor	The Empress	The Fool
Fortune	The Hanged Man	The Hierophant
The Hermit	Judgment	Justice
Lovers	The Magician	The Moon
The Priestess	The Star	Strength
Strength (Alternate)	The Sun	Temperance
The Tower	The World