Puyo Puyo Tetris is both a Puyo Puyo game and a Tetris game. Considering some of the lacklustre Tetris games available, it was welcomed news that this was being released in English. As expected, the game packs plenty of modes, both offline and online. And if you’re solely after a single player experience, the game even has an Adventure Mode, where it tells a simple story and allows you to play against opponents of rising difficulty.
The story, or Adventure Mode as it is known in the game, is a great place for newcomers to start. It assumes you already know the basics of both Puyo Puyo and Tetris, so if you’re not, then the tutorials selectable from the main menu should be your first port of call. The story follows Ringo, who plays Puyo Puyo. However, popping those puyo’s eventually caused Tee, who plays Tetris to crash into her universe. Thus, the pair, along with their supporting party, sets about battling each other in games of Puyo Puyo and Tetris. It’s a simple loose story, that’s actually fairly charming and fun from the sheer ridiculous of it.
To progress through Adventure Mode, there are individual levels, with story cutscenes before and after. Cutscenes are told in a visual novel format, so there’s quite a bit of reading, but everything is voiced in English. The levels start off easy but will ramp up in difficulty by the end of it. Each level has slightly different objectives, from playing different modes to achieving certain scores or time limits.
The Adventure Mode initially is a great introduction to the various modes, as you will eventually be playing through all of them. Unfortunately, the difficulty gradually rises so that by the time you’re midway, you’re forced to either get good, or give up. It can be unforgiving, and you definitely need to learn how to gain points fast and damage your opponent at the same time in both Tetris and Puyo Puyo. Opponents can feel frustratingly unfair if you are not competent enough. If you only just want to experience the story, once you fail a stage three times or so, the game gives you the option to skip that stage and progress. Although since all you’re playing are variations of the same games, it can start to get repetitive by the halfway point.
The main portion of Adventure Mode has seven worlds of ten stages each, and depending on your skills, that’ll take between three to five hours. That story simplistic and since if you’ve never experienced a Puyo Puyo game, you won’t recognise anyone in the large cast, it can get a bit confusing overall. The trend of sarcastic and pun-based humor is great. After the credits roll, three more worlds of ten stages are unlocked (they were DLC in the previous Japanese PS3 and Vita releases of the game, now included in this PS4 version for free), and the story element is even more ridiculous. It’s even less structured than the excuse plot of the original but retains its humor.
There are three main gameplay styles: Puyo Puyo, Tetris, and Fusion. In Puyo Puyo, pairs of puyo drop down from the screen. You’re able to rotate them, and the aim is to match four colors to pop them and gain points. Chaining together combos or multiple different colors at once will rack up point multipliers. If you’re playing against an opponent, chaining together these combos will send “garbage” puyo’s to them to make it more difficult.
For Tetris, blocks known as tetrominoes drop from the top of the screen in various shapes. The goal is to rotate them and then drop them down to form a solid line. If a solid line is formed, it will disappear and you gain points. Once again, if you’re battling against an opponent, chaining together multiple lines or clearing lines with each consecutive block will send garbage lines to the opponent, making it harder for them, as once it rises to the top of the screen it’s game over.
Fusion is where it gets interesting as it fuses elements from both Puyo Puyo and Tetris together. So you’ll have both puyo’s and tetrominoes dropping from the top. The usual rule of matching four Puyo’s to cause them to pop stays in place, and the same goes for creating an unbroken line of tetrominoes. However, tetrominoes have the ability to “squash” puyo’s, so that the tetromino falls to the bottom, and the puyo’s eventually drop back into play. It’s surprisingly cohesive for a mash of two similar games, and adds a lot of complexity to the gameplay.
There are various different modes if you’re a solo player. There are the standard three modes of Tetris, Puyo Puyo and Fusion. However, you can only play them against opponents (individually or in teams), so the lack of an endless mode where you just chill and relax until you lose is disappointing. Swap mode constantly swaps between Tetris and Puyo Puyo every 25 seconds; Big Bang has you eliminating lines in preset boards to whittle down the health of your opponent and Party has items added to the board. It’s a healthy amount of content and modes to keep your attention occupied.
Frustratingly, some modes allow you to set the handicap while others don’t. The default difficulty is hard as it assumes that you’re an experienced player. Therefore, if you are a newbie, then there is a harsh difficulty curve and it can feel cheap and unfair. Despite that, it is strangely addictive and you keep playing one more game while your skills are slowly improving. The simple yet refreshing aesthetics and soundtrack helps a lot.
Overall, Puyo Puyo Tetris is a surprisingly good mash up of two games. There is a lot of content here, because you get both Puyo Puyo and Tetris, as well as a fusion mode of the two which works really well. While there is plenty of content in single player mode, the lack of an endless free mode is somewhat annoying, and having to connect to online for a similar mode doesn’t count. The Adventure Mode is a nice touch, even if you don’t care about the story twenty levels in. The value is definitely here and the low price makes the package even sweeter.
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