933rd played so far
Genre: Puzzle
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 2004
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Oh man, here we’ve got another version of the block dropping puzzle genre. Not to say that they’re bad – the popularity of Tetris is obvious and I’ve enjoyed many other games in the area. It’s just that at this point, a lot of them look the same – would Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo be at all interesting without its theme?
So while I’m sure Puyo Pop Fever can do its own thing, I don’t think I’ve got much to say to introduce it. At least we only have a handful of its kind left.
Our Thoughts
The gameplay for Puyo Pop Fever follows known colour matching systems – you drop blocks, and if four or more of the same colour meet, they disappear, you get some points and charge up some attack against your opponent – the game is always competetive. You get a fairly big mix of different combinations of tiles as well that nicely mix up gameplay. It all plays fairly well. The competition makes it more interesting and really adds the challenge, as scoring plenty of combinations – especially the fancy ones, as always – has garbage blank tiles block that won’t link, but need to be made to disappear by forming matches next to them.
So yeah, they’re standard rules executed mostly in a playable way. There are some annoyances though, and the main one comes in gameplay. When you get a bigger combination, the game actually pauses, seemingly to work out what needs to happen. It looks like that might not be all editions, but when I played it really took me out of the flow of the game.
The other downside is the story. There is one, it’s a “make your way through this magical tournament” type story. It’s incredibly childish and I really got annoyed with having to sit through it. It’s so perfunctory that the game feels like it would have been better if they skipped it – you know how it all works and you’re just there to play the puzzles anyway.
Final Thoughts
I’ll admit that part of my feelings for the game are influenced by how so much of it has been done before and since. There’s nothing bad about it, it just becomes a bit uninspiring and the game’s story is a part of that. It’s worth trying if you’re into these games or don’t have a variant of it, but don’t necessarily expect too much novelty