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Puyo Pop Fever

I have been waiting patiently for a killer puzzle game to be released ever since the DS came out in November. Handhelds and puzzles naturally compliment each other – ever since Tetris came bundled with the original Game Boy and sold millions of copies, it has been apparent that the time-wasting characteristic they both share is only amplified when mixed. By mid-April, my thirst for a puzzle game was so drastically unquenched that I considered picking up Polarium, even though I knew it had a lackluster amount of gameplay/replay and rather drab graphics and sound. I stuck it out another few weeks though, for Puyo Pop Fever from Sonic Team. I can most certainly testify that the wait was definitely worth it.

My previous and sole experience with the Puyo Pop series is Kirby's Avalanche for the Super Nintendo. This, however, was many years ago as a kid, so I approached the latest rendition with an open mind and vague memories of how much I sucked at it. As soon as I booted up Puyo Pop Fever in my DS, I felt right at home. Super-happy-fun-time Japanese game music flooded both speakers and a pastel title screen invited me to come inside, lose all of my apprehension, and just have fun. It was at the title screen before the game even started that I realized Sonic Team had put another extra touch (no pun intended) into the game; every character and every conversation has full dialogue! As I dove into the gameplay though, the question remained: is Puyo Pop a stale series after over a decade of existence?

In short: hell, no. Puyo Pop Fever offers four main gameplay modes: Single, Multiplayer, and Endless. The Single Player offers four separate modes, RunRun (a training round for beginners), WakuWaku (an 8-match normal difficulty round), HaraHara (a ridiculously difficult 8-match round), and Free Mode (which offers the chance to play a single round against any character for practice). For an average player like me, WakuWaku takes at least 30 minutes to play all the way through, including the inevitable multiple attempts at opponents. I'll go ahead and admit up front that HaraHara is reserved truly for the players with a good deal of Puyo experience; I could barely reach stage two. Though there are only 16 different opponents total, every match is distinctly different and both WakuWaku and HaraHara deserve multiple replays (not to mention improving your score in the Top 10 list). Enough about the game modes though, as the gameplay itself is what makes Puyo Pop Fever the best puzzle game available on the DS.

Puyo Pop derives its formula from Tetris, only instead of falling blocks, there are falling blobs called Puyos. Puyos can fall in groups of two, three, or four, and when at least four of the same color touch, they explode. Therein lies the fun; when Puyos are positioned just right, an exploded group of Puyos allows the Puyos above it to fall which in turn can eliminate another group of four or more Puyos, and so on and so forth. It's this concept of chains in Puyo Pop Fever that adds a whole extra dimension in gameplay (as well as explaining why I sucked so much as Kirby's Avalanche as a kid, since I was convinced the best way to play was to simply get rid of all the Puyos instead of constructing chain reactions). As you complete more and more chains, clear obstruction Puyos begin to gather above the opponents screen. When enough clear Puyos gather, they can drop down anywhere from 5-50+ at a time, filling the opponent's entire screen and eventually causing them to lose. Any adjacent clear Puyos are destroyed anytime a group of Puyos is eliminated, allowing for impressive comebacks even if your screen is almost completely blocked to the brim.

This has been the classic Puyo Pop formula for years, though. What makes the new Fever series unique is its, (you guessed it), Fever mode. A character is able to go into this mode after enough chains are completed. The entire playing field is erased and replaced by a new stack of Puyos constructed so that the next piece dropped is able to set off a stack-clearing chain reaction if placed correctly. A newer larger stack then appears that allows for bigger, better combos. The longer the chains, the longer the time in Fever mode, at least until the timer runs out and the original stack is restored. If timed correctly, Fever mode can be used against an opponent to utterly bury them in clear Puyos nearly instantaneously. If not, an opponent can wait until just before your Fever mode finishes and turn all of the gathered clear blocks on you, spelling game over for yourself. This unique dynamic allows for incorporation of many different gameplay styles ranging from the most defensive to the most aggressive.

For those with plenty of time to kill, Endless mode offers yet another way to enjoy Puyo Pop Fever. Endless Fever is a blast; the game stays in a constant Fever, allowing a constant rack up awesome looking (and scoring!) chains provided you can keep yourself in a Fever. Endless mission gives the brain teasers such as "eliminate x puyos at once!" or "create a x chain!", while Endless Classic is just that – a game of Puyo Pop (without Fever mode) that gets progressively faster and more difficult until you lose. Deceptively simple, these three modes are great for practicing racking up high scores or staying occupied in line at the doctor's office or wherever.

Why keep all of the fun to yourself? The shining feature in Puyo Pop Fever has to be the multiplayer. With only one cart, up to 8 players can battle simultaneously using any different number of game modes. Be it classic, normal (Fever), Trap (trying to get your opponent to go into a Fever and lower their offense), or custom, all options are impressively available completely for all players even with just one cart. Customization allows tweaks to everything from chain limits, to the rate of falling pieces, to the number of nuisance Puyos that fall. Multiplayer offers practically no graphic sacrifices from the main game, and even transmits full audio to all other players!

One vs. one multiplayer with a friend is a blast. You and a buddy vs. two comps is a frenzy. By the time 8 players/CPUs have entered a game, everything becomes absolutely insane. All 8 players are shown at one time, and the cacophony of chain-combo exclamations and music would bring any ADD player to their knees. With a multitude of modes and the added benefit of full multiplayer support off of one cartridge, Puyo Pop Fever is the puzzle game for anybody with friends (or enemies) who own DS systems.

All of this wonderful single player and multiplayer comes polished in an aforementioned pastel graphical environment at which you can't help but smile. The two dozen audio tracks, in addition to the voices and sound effects of all of the characters, really helps to create a wholly entertaining, if not submersive, handheld experience. The controls themselves are polished, too but only if you use the D-Pad and the A/B buttons. Sonic Team deserves an E for effort by trying to incorporate touch screen control in the game – stroking left/right to move Puyos, and tapping to rotate – but in the fast-paced frenzy against any opponent, these controls simply aren't responsive or intuitive enough in comparison to the classic D-Pad and A/B combo. It doesn't really matter though, since the choice is up to the player.

This game gets an N-Philes score of A.

The point should be clear by now; anybody who enjoys puzzles games and owns a DS should not be without Puyo Pop Fever. The single player offers endless hours of challenge and the multiplayer is the best yet on the handheld. The game itself is somewhat of a rarity though; most commercial stores only received and will only receive one or two copies, so go grab one while they are still on shelves at only $30! Go! Wicked!

PS: For those of you with Puyo Pop Fever, you might not want to blow off experimenting with the microphone and touchpad throughout the game...

Posted in: Reviews