Play Columns on Snes Online

Columns was one of those early puzzle games that showed up on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990, a Sega title that felt a bit like an outsider on a Nintendo console. It arrived during a time when the platform was just starting to build its library, offering a different flavor from the action and platforming games that were more common.

You control the falling columns of three colored gems, rotating them to align the colors vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. The main goal is to create matches of three or more identical gems, which then vanish from the screen; the real strategy comes from setting up chain reactions that clear multiple groups at once. The game starts calmly but the pace quickens steadily, building a genuine tension as the stack climbs higher. It feels satisfying to set off a big combo and watch the screen suddenly clear.