SEGA AGES Puyo Puyo 2 (Nintendo Switch) Review

Nailing the essential mantra of all puzzle games in its infancy; easy to pick up and play but hard to master mechanics, Puyo Puyo's gameplay is as rock solid now as it ever was. A static grid with continuously falling duo blobs, the player is tasked to connect 4 or more of the same colour to make them vanish and subsequently clear the grid. The flexibility in doing so lies in the blobs themselves as they can connect to each other vertically and horizontally, as well as individually dropping off the side of single stacks. It's a fun and unique puzzler system that gets especially frantic in multiplayer and versus CPU matches. Charming animated character portraits complete the package, though sadly their dialogue is untranslated.

As an adaptation of the Arcade version of the game, Puyo Puyo 2's content offering is, on the surface at least, very basic. We have the Arcade Mode; clearing each stage against progressively harder foes to reach the end level, and Endurance, which is basically the same but an Endless gauntlet. Versus Mode is self explanatory, and making use of an Online Match gives multiple opponent choices.

The biggest appeal of this Puyo Puyo 2 edition comes with the SEGA Ages feature inclusions. Not only with the usual Ages content like Difficulty settings, Custom Controls, Save States, Online Rankings, Background and display settings and a Music player, but also with the Puyo blobs themselves. Their range of colours in use at one time, their shade and design with choices of other styles in the series to use, and even a toggle-able Time Reverse feature that with a press of the shoulder button rewinds a blob duo placement at any point of play. These additions overall are quite substantial for the game, and turn what could've been another throwaway puzzle game on Switch into a top contender for any fan of the genre.