Columns on Game Gear: Sega's coloured gem puzzle in its portable version. Addictive, elegant and perfectly suited to portable sessions. A timeless classic.
Your verdict
Category
Puzzle1 player3+
Description
The player stacks coloured gems to complete vertical lines in this classic Sega puzzle for Game Gear. Published by Sega, released in the United States in October 1990. Falling gem puzzle with horizontal, vertical and diagonal alignments, solo and versus modes, progressive pace. US edition.
Columns review
3/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Polished"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
1/5
Story
★★★★★
"Anecdotal"
The themes borrow their modes from the Mediterranean: scales with augmented seconds, quick ornaments, motifs turning in a loop like a dance. The tempo follows the rising stack, speeding up as the screen fills, so the music becomes a danger gauge before the top line is ever reached.
Gameplay
"Excellent"
Fun
"From the very first seconds"
Stacking jewels in columns of three and lining them up to clear them: Sega's formula rivals the genre's heavyweights for elegance. The rising tempo and the hunt for the perfect cascade create an almost hypnotic tension. Clear, addictive, endless, this puzzle gem stays one of the best pocket companions for slipping away.
Addictiveness
"Obsessive"
Lining up three gems of the same color, setting off a chain drop and watching the stack melt away at once delivers a satisfaction that immediately calls for the next game. The speed creeps up imperceptibly toward pure tension, and every record broken restarts the hunt for the next. The concept barely renews itself, but this steady climb stays a perfect trap for on-the-go sessions.
Columns in its North American edition, one of the most widespread Game Gear titles, often sold with the console. That very ubiquity makes it a game without rarity, easily found cheaply. Its collecting interest lies not in its value but in its role as an emblematic gateway to the machine and its near-obligatory presence in any representative library.
Is Columns still worth playing in 2026?
A pillar of Sega puzzling, Columns drops columns of three gems you align by three or more, horizontally, vertically or diagonally, to clear them. The clear principle hides a rise in tension and a combo pleasure that has lost none of its force. The Game Gear version, perfectly readable, accompanied the console from the start. For a fan of classic puzzling or someone curious about the genre's foundations at Sega, the title stays a safe bet and still current.
