By this point, almost everyone has played Tetris.
It’s that bit of familiar gaming that’s easy to come back to whenever you like and
simply fall into a groove.
And I’m no different as Tetris was the first game I owned on the original Game Boy.
But Puyo Puyo is something different.
I’ve only ever really encountered it before in Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, and
it never quite clicked for me.
I knew it was clever in the way chains could be set up, but I was never really able to
wrap my head around it.
This made me curious how I was going to feel about Puyo Puyo Tetris, a game that combines
the two long-running puzzle series into one package.
But how well do they fit together really?
The gameplay in Puyo Puyo Tetris is both familiar and new.
All the rules and tactics of both games are here in their entirety.
For Tetris, you use the various Tetrimino shapes to clear lines and can even hold one
block for a better timed use.
In Puyo Puyo, matching four of a color will clear it from the area.
However, in order to earn the best score, players will want to arrange them in such
a way that the colors will fall on each other and potentially create a chain.
Both fall quite handily into the easy to learn, hard to master school of puzzle games.
But the game doesn’t just throw you in head first as there is a series of lessons that
you can choose to watch in order to learn both the basics of the gameplay as well as
some advanced maneuvers.
And while I knew most of the tips for Tetris, the tutorials did help me with some better
methods of earning Puyo chains.
It’s not just the two separate games though.
Each one of the many available modes change up the goals and ends up offering an immense
amount of replayability overall, but the biggest new mode is the Fusion Battles.
This combines the rules of Puyo Puyo and Tetris into one game where both puzzle methods will
drop.
Puyo are more common, but Tetriminos can crush them to form the necessary lines.
It doesn’t get rid of the Puyo though, at least not the colored ones, as they’ll soon
come back above the Tetrimino.
And there are other blocks that are only made up of one or two squares.
There’s a lot of possibility here in the way the Puyo and Tetriminos interact with
each other and a players decision to either fast drop the blocks into place or letting
it slowly fall in order to interact with Puyo as they rearrange, possibly leading to even
bigger scores.
I’m by no means good at the mode, but I can see it becoming chaotic fun as players
learn its advanced tactics.
Beyond Fusion, there are 4 modes that are available in both Single and Multiplayer.
Versus mode is the standard where each player chooses either Tetris or Puyo Puyo to play.
In a truly awesome decision, not every player needs to pick the same puzzle game.
Both will send junk piles to each other the better you play so if one person is better
at Puyo Puyo and the other prefers Tetris, they can still play together.
It’s simple fun that harkens back to the classic ideas of these puzzlers.
Swap Mode might be my favorite of the bunch.
As the name implies, the board changes from Tetris to Puyo Puyo at set times.
Each board is separate, but lose on one, and it’s a total game over.
There’ve been some tense moments where I was succeeding on one but failing on the other
and attempting to recover as best as I could.
It really keeps you active by switching things up.
Party Mode is like the standard versus except items are thrown into the mix.
The way it works is that a random item will will appear on your board, so you have to
clear it with either puzzle element to activate the ability.
This can cause benefits like upping your attack or defense or mess with your opponents by
limiting their view to a spotlight, forcing fast drops, or not allowing them to rotate
their puzzle elements.
Winning is not a matter of outlasting the other players.
It’s more about getting the highest score you can within the time limit.
If you or any other players’ board is filled, it’ll instantly be cleared at the cost of
points.
Party is by far the most chaotic mode, and while it can be fun, it’s immensely frustrating
when certain line-ups of bad items hit you all at once.
Although possibile, I wouldn’t expect nuanced play here.
Finally, there’s the Big Bang Mode.
In this, each player tries to clear their board as fast as possible.
The catch is that it’s already set up in such a way that only a few Tetriminos or Puyos
are necessary.
It’s all about quickly glancing at the distribution and knowing where to place the element.
For Tetris, it’s all about speed.
But Puyo Puyo combines that speed with knowing where to get the maximum chain.
After a set amount of time, the round ends and the scores are tallied.
The bigger the gap between scores, the more damage is done to you or your opponents until
only one remains.
For me, it’s the most technical mode in the game.
While I could stand against the CPU just fine, it’s very clear when there’s a gap in
skill amongst friends.
And speaking of friends, the online is definitely fun with a competitive Puzzle League or Free
Play rooms to join your friends both available.
Creating, joining, and playing together was generally fast, and I didn’t notice any
lag during my matches.
It’s even possible to specify what kind of modes you’re up for when playing ensuring
that everyone will have someone that they can face off against.
Finally, single player offers the Solo Arcade which works like multiplayer except each mode
has an option for Endurance Play as well.
In this, you’ll face off against a series of AI opponents until you lose helping to
keeping things at least a little different.
There’s also challenges like Endless Puyo where gameplay continues until the board is
filled, Tiny Puyo, where more Puyo can be on the screen, and Tetris challenges that
test how fast you can earn points.
Again, it all adds to the variety so you’re not doing the exact same thing over and over.
And this is best represented by the Adventure Mode.
This takes you through a simple story where the characters you can play as meet each other
and explains why the worlds of Tetris and Puyo Puyo are combining.
It won’t blow any minds, but I was consistently charmed with the wordplay and silly performances
by the actors.
It gave the game a sense of charm that I found surprisingly endearing.
On top of that, the mode consists of 100 challenges and some of these are hard, even just to simply
pass.
After all, each level also has a star ranking so there’s the extra challenge of getting
three stars on every level.
Needless to say, the game will keep you busy for a while if you set out to do everything.
Puyo Puyo Tetris is just a pleasant, addictive gameplay experience.
The visuals are bright and clean, making it really pop whether on the TV or the Switch’s
handheld mode.
And the music is appropriately energetic for when you go into a puzzle fever.
If you’re a fan of puzzle games at all, this is well worth your time.
While not all the modes are equally fun, they do offer up a sense of variety that I liked
a lot.
And the game knows exactly what it is with quickplay options for all three main gameplay
styles available right at the main menu.
It’s a perfect pick up and play game that anyone can enjoy.
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