Puyo Puyo Tetris (PC) Review

When first booting this up, players will be met with a plethora of different modes. The number of options may seem overwhelming at first, but there's luckily a few ways to easily settle into things, the first of which being practice lessons for both Puyo Puyo and Tetris, as well as a story campaign that covers all the modes available.

Although both types of gameplay have an incredibly high skill ceiling, getting into either Puyo Puyo or Tetris is simple to do. Puyo Puyo has you matching four blobs of the same colour to make them disappear, and you are rewarded for setting this up in a way that causes other blobs to fall down and also match with more blobs to make those disappear, as well. Tetris is the same as everyone remembers it, having to connect differently shaped blocks that disappear when a full horizontal line on the board is built. Playing well sends garbage blocks/blobs onto the other player's screen, and they lose if their board is completely filled up.

Having a story mode might seem a bit strange for a title like this, but it's actually a common trait in the Puyo Puyo series, especially in the later entries (which, as mentioned earlier, never got localised). Even on its own, though, and without being able to catch up on the history and developments behind many of these characters, the plot is shockingly competent.

The main reason that the plot isn't a gigantic slog comes down to its writing, which is actually quite witty and genuinely funny surprisingly often. It's not fantastic by any means, but it's not trying to be amazing in the first place; it knows what it's aiming for, and has a lot of fun with it in the process. Sure, it's not the highlight, but it's still enjoyable to go through, especially with the great localisation work.

As for the story mode itself, it has 70 main missions and 30 bonus ones, each having you meet various requirements in different modes, allowing to get up to a three-star ranking depending on performance. There's a mostly consistent learning curve geared towards new players, but getting three stars on every mission can take several tries depending on the level, even for those who have played both Puyo Puyo and Tetris a good amount.

Story mode is also how much of the game's extra content is unlocked. Not so much modes, but the tons and tons of different skins, characters, backgrounds, and music. There's also a shop where you can buy even more of these cosmetic options with credits earned from completed matches. Not only that, but there's a healthy amount of customisation available with numerous controller set-ups, and even the ability to switch between English and Japanese voice acting, a feature added in the PC port.

Speaking of the PC version, its port was initially released in an unfortunate state, but since then has received multiple patches that have greatly enhanced the experience, and there's supposed to be even more improvements to come. There are still a few bugs here and there (such as a voice clip randomly playing in the wrong language during story mode), but the PC port as a whole is fine enough in its current state, especially with the reduced price tag of $20, as well as the existence of mod support if that's something people are interested in.

The gameplay itself in Puyo Puyo Tetris is solidly deep and addictive. There's a great variety of modes, such basic Puyo vs. Puyo/Tetris vs. Tetris matches, Puyo vs. Tetris, a mode where you constantly swap between Puyo Puyo and Tetris, various single-player modes meant to test your skill (such as seeing how fast you can clear 40 lines in Tetris), and even a mode that has you playing both Puyo Puyo and Tetris at the same time. The fact that the two series that all these modes are based off of are so complex makes it feel like there's always something to be learned and applied to the majority of modes regardless of what you play the most often.

One of the most important aspects is the online multiplayer, where you can put your skills to the test in both ranked and unranked versions of all the modes, excluding the one-player exclusive ones. Although offline play has plenty to offer on its own, the online mode is where most are likely going to be spending their time. As of this review, the online multiplayer is still pleasantly active, and probably will be for quite awhile considering how popular the franchises this game is based off of are. The balance of a Puyo vs. Tetris match can be a bit rough (since Puyo Puyo is meant to be strategic, long, and methodical, whereas Tetris is extremely fast-paced and can easily ruin a good Puyo set-up), but this is mainly noticeable only during high level play, and it's still enjoyable despite all that.