Oh My God!

Oh My God! is a 1993 arcade puzzle game by Atlus. A company later famous chiefly for its role-playing games appears here in a different role – as the maker of a brisk coin-op puzzler, a genre that boomed in Japanese arcades in the early nineties following the success of falling-block games.

It is played from a top-down view of the board, single-player, as the entry records. Arcade puzzle games of the period were built on a simple, instantly graspable principle, an accelerating tempo and short rounds – a cabinet had to hook a player within seconds and hand the machine to the next customer minutes later. Oh My God! belongs to that school, complete with the eccentric, humorous presentation its very title promises.

The year 1993 was a golden age for Japanese arcades: alongside the fighting games that ruled the floor, puzzle titles held a stable spot as the relaxing alternative. Atlus released several during the decade, and this one now sits among the lesser-known items in its catalogue.

That is exactly why it is valuable to be able to try this cabinet first-hand, in an emulated form matching an arcade of 1993.

Arcade puzzle games also suit short browser sessions unusually well: a round lasts minutes, the rules explain themselves from the screen, and the only things that grow are your score and the game's tempo. It is a format that has needed no real change since 1993 – which this cabinet demonstrates first-hand.

Open the game's page on OldGame.cz and Oh My God! spins up right in your browser – no installation, just like walking up to the machine.