Pairs

The Good
This game came in a bundle of tapes with our VG-8020, along with a few others: Blagger, Glider, Manus, Disc Warrior, and maybe another one that I've forgotten. It loaded quite fast, a couple of minutes maybe.

There are three card sets (fruits, vegetables and animals), all quite colorful, for the first three stages; they repeat after. The music is quite catchy; I still remember it after almost 20 years.

Because of the enemies, it is as much an action game as it is a memory game. In fact the only way difficulty ramps up is by making the enemies go faster (and by putting two of them after some stage). They go after you only if they see you on the same lane they are in, but in the higher levels they are so fast that you barely have time to turn around the next corner in time to avoid them following you there.

The best part of the game is that it can be played by two people on any combination of cursor keys/joystick 1/joystick 2. It is the only way to go further than the 7th or the 8th stage. My brother and I had lots of fun playing it until one magical day when we beat Stage 12.

The Bad
There is a ton of ways in which such a simple game could be improved, but also spoiled. For what it was, it was pretty much perfect.

The Bottom Line
A two-player action twist on the classic memory game.