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4colorrebellion · 7 years

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4cr Plays: Puyo Puyo Tetris

Like many gamers, I have a long-running history with Tetris. I first got a Game Boy back in Christmas of 1993, and it came bundled with Link’s Awakening. Well, being an idiot, I didn’t want Link’s Awakening. I didn’t care that it was free. I wanted some Ninja Turtles sidescroller.

I did get the Turtles game, and it was bad. However, I did give Link’s Awakening a try, despite my earlier protests, and it ended up being one of my favorite games. To this day, it remains my favorite 2D entry in the series.

Then came Tetris.

A couple of months after getting the Game Boy, my teacher took it away when I got caught playing in class. It wasn’t a big deal - she gave it back later that day. However, when she gave it back, there was an extra game. To my credit, I did tell her that it wasn’t mine. She told me to take it anyways - as long as I promised not to play in class. That is how I ended up with my first copy of Tetris.

Again, being an idiot, I thought this Tetris thing looked stupid. I must have learned a tiny lesson from the Link’s Awakening experience, however, as I did slot the cart into the system that night to give it a try.

I never did learn who that copy of Tetris belonged to, but I definitely owe them. I was immediately hooked. I ran down so many pairs of batteries playing that game. To this day, Tetris is just something I have to have on every handheld system. According to my play log, I’ve put about 75 hours into the 3DS Virtual Console release of the original. I must have put hundreds into Tetris DS. I even have a copy of the mediocre Tetris Ultimate for Vita!

Whoever you are, anonymous donor of Tetris, I hope you won the cosmic karma lottery.

I have far less history with Puyo Puyo. And in all fairness, the western world as a whole has far less history with Puyo Puyo. However, I do have one memory from my early days. I never had a Genesis as a kid, but I did love Sonic the Hedgehog. Like a lot of kids I was really into the Archie comics and the Saturday morning cartoon (the good one - the one that, in retrospect, was a total Star Wars knockoff). I did have a couple of friends who owned a Genesis, and one weekend, I went over to see the new games they got for their birthday and watch cartoons. One of those games was called Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine.

In one of the stranger marketing moves of the 90′s, SEGA took Puyo Puyo and inserted Sonic characters. Aesthetically, it’s a mess. Even at the time, my main reaction was that the game looked weird, and that the Sonic connections were only surface-deep. Since I didn’t own any SEGA systems at that point, I never really got into Mean Bean Machine like I did Tetris, but I do have some lingering memories of falling blobs.

This long, rambling, road leads us into Puyo Puyo Tetris - a PB&J mix of the two long-running puzzle titans. Puyo Puyo Tetris is actually old news in Japan - it came out almost three years ago for every system under the sun - but never made it to the west. However, we have a new system, the Nintendo Switch, and not surprisingly, SEGA has taken the opportunity to both port the game and release it world-wide.

Unlike a lot of westerners, and mainly because of my Tetris addiction, this is not my first encounter with Puyo Puyo Tetris. I actually imported it for Vita and played a ton of it there. That being said, I am unreasonably excited for the new release for two reasons:

Even though I own a truly ludicrous number of handheld systems, I have some inexplicable need for a copy of Tetris on all of them. I have a new system (the Switch). I need Tetris. No, this isn’t healthy. Let’s just move on.

I’m not exactly fluent in Japanese. I can parse the menu screens, but my Japanese was absolutely not up to the task of making sense of the story mode.

And oh yes. There is a story mode. In a puzzle game. It also turns out that it makes about as much sense in English as it did in Japanese. But that’s OK - it’s fantastic. We’ll get to that more in a minute.

First, it is worth taking a second to explain the western release, because it is a little confusing. They are releasing it world-wide for both Switch and PS4. For Switch, you can buy it either digitally or physically. The digital release, in the US, is $30. The physical version is $40, but comes with keychains. The PS4 version is physical-only, and costs $30 (and does not come with the keychains). This is due to the insane licensing requirements for Tetris. Because Ubisoft sells Tetris Ultimate digitally on PS4, SEGA cannot release Puyo Puyo Tetris digitally. I have no idea why this does not cover physical copies as well, but I am glad - at least PS4 owners can get this in some form. Because there are no other Tetris games on Switch, SEGA could release in both forms. However, if you want this digitally, I’d recommend getting it sooner rather than later.

OK - that was a bit confusing. To summarize, this is out on PS4 and Switch. It is physical-only on PS4, and comes in both physical and digital form on Switch.

Let’s step back for a minute and cover the basics.

You are probably familiar with Tetris. If not (What are you doing? Go buy a GameBoy!), the premise is that shapes fall from the sky. These shapes, called tetrominoes, are formed from the combination of four squares - just as dominoes are formed from two squares. You control where those shapes fall, and if you can form a solid line between the two sides of the screen with these shapes, the line will disappear. Your task is to keep forming these lines as long as you can, while the tetrominoes keep speeding up their descent. You get points for each line cleared, and bonuses for clearing multiple lines at once - up to a max of four, called a “tetris.” There are a few minor additions, but the basic formula is beautiful in its simplicity.

Puyo Puyo is similar. Colored pairs of blobs fall from the sky. Over time, they fall faster. In this case, your goal is to form combinations of four blobs of the same color. These combinations can be in any configuration except diagonal, so you can have a big square, a line, a cross - etc. - as long as they share a color. Like in Tetris, you get more points for clearing multiple combinations at once. You also get more points for combinations with more than four elements. The biggest twist is the concept of chains. When you clear a combination, the blobs above it fall. If you clear a combo, and the falling blobs form a new combo, then you get a huge score bonus. This builds as more chain reactions occur. The key to Puyo Puyo mastery comes in setting up massive chain reactions.

If you are entirely new to one of the games, they include a series of tutorial videos covering each of the core concepts. I wish they were a bit more interactive, but they do the trick for covering the basics.

In most of the modes of Puyo Puyo Tetris, you play either Puyo Puyo or Tetris. If, like me, you have a ton of love for Tetris and very little experience with Puyo Puyo, this is a fantastic way to get your Tetris fix and explore a new game. The same would hold true for die-hard Puyo Puyo fans. There are a ton of different game modes, and both Tetris and Puyo Puyo are represented excellently. Both games also mix well. In multiplayer, players can choose their game. In both Tetris and Puyo Puyo, scoring will drop garbage pieces on the other player. This means that they can be combined fairly seamlessly, with one player playing Puyo Puyo and the other playing Tetris.

There is also a fusion mode where you can play both games at the same time, with both tetrominoes and blobs falling on the field. It is exactly as insane as it sounds.

So, getting back to the story mode. Apparently this is a staple in the Puyo Puyo series. I guess - as a Tetris player - I’ve been missing out. The “adventure” mode presents a 10 chapter storyline where the Puyo Puyo cast find themselves (a) on a spaceship, with (b) blocks falling from the sky. The spaceship inhabitants aren’t particularly bothered by the tetrominoes, but are quite perturbed by the sudden appearance of falling blobs. Suddenly, the two groups must unite to stop the… falling puzzle pieces. I wasn’t kidding when I said it didn’t make much more sense in English. It’s kind of delightfully nonsensical.

Each chapter is made up of a series of levels where you play either Tetris or Puyo Puyo. In each level, you have a set of three objectives to fulfill. At the end, you get a star rating based on how many you passed. This is actually a fantastic way to get better at each game, as you have targets to work towards. I really appreciate this, as I really haven’t played much Puyo Puyo, and this has really helped improve my skills.

The “Solo Arcade” menu offers a variety of game modes to play, as the title implies, by yourself. You can face off against a CPU opponent in either game. You can play the fusion mode that I mentioned earlier. There is a mode called Swap, where you alternate at set intervals between both games. This is really fun, as you have to keep track of where you left off. There is a Party mode where items fall from the sky that activate as you clear lines or combinations. The Big Bang mode tasks you with clearing set patterns without making mistakes. Finally, there are three “challenge” modes for each game. For Puyo Puyo, there is an endless mode, a mode where you complete preset chains as long as possible, and a mode where the blobs are extra tiny. For Tetris, the standard marathon is present (150 lines). There is also a sprint mode where you complete 40 lines as fast as possible, and the “ultra” mode, where you get the best score you can within a three minute limit.

You can play any of these, except the challenge modes, in local multiplayer as well. Local multiplayer can either be done on the same system, with each player taking a joycon, or over a wireless connection. The online mode also offers the same modes, and you can play either ranked or unranked matches.

There are a couple of nice additional bonuses. As you play, you accumulate credits that can be exchanged for game skins and voice packs for the announcers. There are also trophies for each game that you can unlock.

One of my concerns going into the Switch version was the lack of a “real” d-pad on the system. After putting a good bit of time into the final release, I needn’t have been concerned. The split “d-buttons” on the joycon are fine. I actually think they feel better than the Vita d-pad in the game. The game also looks fantastic on both the Switch screen and on a big TV.

All-in-all, Puyo Puyo Tetris is a fantastic package, and I’m thrilled that SEGA has finally released it to the rest of the world. If you have a PS4 or a Switch, I cannot recommend this enough. It is a packed collection of variants of two of the most important puzzle games in existence, with a huge variety of single and multiplayer modes. I can see this getting a ton of playtime on my Switch.

#Nintendo #Nintendo Switch #Puyo Puyo #Tetris #video games #greg4cr #Puyo Puyo Tetris

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