I have never really been a big Tetris player. My grandmother and mother were rather fond of it, but it appears the fixation with it has skipped a generation. The only reason I'm doing this particular game is by reader request (and being generously gifted the game on Steam, so thank you for that). But will this be a nice little trip outside my usual comfort zone or will I once more find no real reason to care for Tetris beyond the occasional killer of time between cradle and grave? Let's have a look.
So, Puyo Puyo Tetris is actually not one game on its own, but a fusion of two separate games - that being Puyo Puyo and Tetris, for those of you who aren't doing a good job keeping up. Tetris really doesn't need any introduction. You match shapes into straight lines that are destroyed in an apt and cutting metaphor for the victory of Russian Communism in destroying the cruel machinations of the capitalist of the West. If you're going up against someone else, the lines you make will futz up your opponent's screen and vice-versa, the pieces descent at a rapidly faster and faster speed as you go on, and the first person who fails to match lines all the way to the top of the screen loses.
And honestly, that's all there really is to Tetris. It's not bad, and I think my second paragraph might have given the impression that I don't like it and that isn't the case. My view on Tetris is more apathy than anything else. It's not that it's bad, more that it's not a game where I get in a mood to just break it out and play it.
And having played it as well, I can say much the same for Puyo Puyo. It's essentially a color matching game where one has to connect four or more Puyos of the same color to make them pop and disappear much as Tetris lines do when they're loaded from one side of the screen to the other. Unlike Tetris' rather specific guidelines for loss - reaching the top of the screen - Puyo Puyo goes for a far more focused approach. Instead of reaching the top of the screen at any spot, if the player reaches a specific spot and can't get rid of anything from that spot, then they lose. Also, get enough chains of Puyos broken and you can clear off garbage from your screen or add more to your opponent's to make their efforts that much more difficult.
I know, I'm staggered by it too!
Sarcasm about the lack of innovation aside, this does explain why the two concepts have been married in this one game and how they could work together, particularly when the game throws in a fusion version of the two games of what is already stressful and mind boggling at high speeds. The game, like Tetris itself usually does, becomes an endurance test and cognitive exercise all in one. Along with the joys of multiplayer (which I was advised not to get into until you really feel comfortable with either Tetris or Puyo Puyo or the fusion version), there are several modes for both the respective games and the fusion variety.
You have the Sprint, Marathon, and Ultra modes you've seen in most Tetris games at least since the Nintendo 64 era. There are respective counterparts for Puyo Puyo as well, and then there's the fusion type which only has two - Fusion and Swap mode. Fusion brings the two together onto one board with the Tetris blocks sinking under Puyos like rocks. Coincidentally, this was the game that taught me that Tetris blocks actually have a name!
Tetrinimoes, for the curious.
Swap mode gives the player two boards to control - one with Tetris and the other with Puyo - and has them managing both and if you've ever played Tetris you know how difficult it is to keep yourself from screwing things up with one board at high speed, much less two of them.
There's also a story mode...which, coming from Japan, has been anime'd to death. A young woman from a universe where people battle using Puyos (and not, in the offense of all that is realistic about anime, children's card games) has her life turned upside down when these strange blocks start falling down on her world. Meeting with a space captain in a too-tight outfit who uses these strange blocks in the same way she uses Puyos, she must journey across the cosmos to discover what has allowed this strange universe to cross into her totally not insane one.
Yeah, the story is not the strong suite here. Not by a long shot, but it's almost like the game knows this because it's kind enough to let you skip cutscenes entirely and just get on with the actual game. The actual game is pretty solid as far as it goes. A decent progression curve through the story with nothing too completely mouse-eatingly frustrating. Nothing that made me want to fling my laptop off into the horizon in disgust at any rate.
If you want to check it out, it's on Steam (where I can also coincidentally be found and will likely be looking at some more PC games in the nearish future). If you're a Tetris fan or a Puyo Puyo fan or both, then you'll definitely enjoy it because it's the same game that's been coming out over the last few decades either way.
Puyo Puyo Tetris is now available from Sonic Team and Sega for Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows. This review being based on the Microsoft Windows version.
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