Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine Two-Player Gear to Gear Mode (Sonic Adventure DX - GameCube)

This is a capture of me and a friend playing the Gear to Gear Mode of Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine for the Sega Game Gear via Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s Cut for the GameCube. I'm playing the game in progressive scan mode using an actual GameCube (not the Wii). I'm player one (left screen) and Drew is player two (right screen).

I picked up Sonic Adventure DX for the GameCube last month in order to play through the Game Gear version of Sonic Chaos, which is one of the 12 unlockable Game Gear games in this title. However, I noticed that once I unlocked and tried playing the various Game Gear games, a few of them gave me a prompt on screen to press start on controller two. Upon doing that, the screen split in two in order to simulate two Game Gear systems competing head-to-head in two-player mode.

This built-in two-player feature is easily the most impressive functionality I have ever seen in any sort of official emulation because it is duplicating two handheld systems on a single console. To my knowledge, even Nintendo has never bothered to implement two-player functionality for its handheld emulation.

After I posted my Sonic Chaos playthrough, I decided I would have to record and post some two-player footage of the other Game Gear games as soon as possible. Luckily, Drew once again helped me out with that.

Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine is actually just a modified version of the puzzle game Puyo Puyo, similar to Tetris Attack on the SNES being a modified version of Panel de Pon. The Sonic theme for this puzzle game is taken from the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon from 1993, and it includes characters from that show. I actually watched quite a few episodes of that cartoon back when it came out.

This game is fairly similar to Tetris, Columns, and Dr. Mario. You drop colored beans and try to connect at least four in a row in order to wipe them out. The two-player mode is called Gear to Gear Mode based on the Gear-to-Gear Cable that links two Game Gears together for multiplayer. Just like in the single-player mode, you can form combos or chains similar to Tetris Attack, which then drops clear beans on your opponent. It’s a really solid puzzle game, especially in two-player mode, but it ramps up the speed rather quickly, making for short and intense rounds.

Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine was actually released on the 3DS Virtual Console back in 2013, but I never bought the game. I only briefly played it once after unlocking it on Sonic Adventure DX, so this battle was only my second time playing the game. However, my extensive experience with Nintendo puzzle games no doubt helped me quite a bit. Drew and I played two rounds and then called it quits, but I thought Drew did pretty well for his first time playing this game.

Recorded with the Hauppauge HD PVR and the GameCube's component cables at 60 frames per second.