Tetramines, laughter and … beans?!?
Spooky Spoiler: We fell in love madly. Fine spoiler.
Puyo Puyo Tetris , well-behaved, is a fabulous, well-designed tableware production, which could not have been successful, as it tries to please all kinds of players and, for once, seems to be successful.
Those who grew up behind their Game Boy with Tetris in the cartridge slot will find here a modernized version, but still very faithful to the original concept of Alexey Pajitnov’s masterpiece, with the ability to implement the same, timeless trent ‘ years ago, to put a piece in wait and see, at the top of the screen, an preview of the next five pieces coming in, so as to structure precise strategies.
Old-fashioned Tetris enthusiasts will know that starting to play and having fun with this ingenious puzzle game is simple, but mastering the level of challenge, especially in the advanced stages, is another story: this version for Switch does not differ nothing, offering a well-calibrated curve of learning, without major entrance barriers, but tends to become extremely steep for all those who really want to do seriously.
Similarly, Puyo Puyo returns in all its splendor, taking the best out of the regular episodes of the franchise (which we think date back to MegaDrive) but also by the hectic episodes Puyo Pop , who introduced the Fever mode, which returns here in the West: We Westerners have never reserved for this product the attention and love it would have deserved, probably, and now Sega seems to have come to the moment of the resignation.
Do you really need to explain the mechanics behind the two products here?
We do not believe, but for those who have lived on Mars in the last three decades, both titles have a board with falling pieces from above, which optimize the position in order to form figures of the same color (four it is the magic number for both Tetris and Puyo Puyo ): a line (Tetris) or Puyo ( Puyo Puyo ) conglomerate will disappear, freeing space and, depending on the game mode selected, flooding the opponent’s window casually generated blocks that will irretrievably ruin the strategy of others and, in some cases, old-time friendships and the conquest of heavenly paradise.
Definitive crossover
In addition to the “base” versions of the two titles, Puyo Puyo Tetris puts on the table a series of genial modes, more fun than the other, capable of scrambling cards and giving freshness to titles that did not seem to have much to say: play mixing on the same board, tetramines and Puyo makes the experience completely new, even in the light of the fact that Tetris blocks can crush Puyo, opening up new tactics (and a lot of uncomplicated combo but as you like!).
However, the way that the brains are most rotten, however, is the one that alternates, with a timer initially set at thirty seconds but falling continuously, a board of Puyo Puyoand one of Tetris, forcing to change approach to the game continuously if you want to have some hope of survival.
The frenzy and the ability to plan ahead in the next moves are badly married, and the result is a chaos controlled that will not be able to generate pure fun and fun, both in single player and, above all, in the company of one or more friends.
Although both of these titles definitely favor the competitive edge , Puyo Puyo Tetris isalso an Adventure Mode, a principled mode for those who prefer to present themselves to the multiplayer starting blocks with a certain bag of experience.
Through a hundred levels lurking in frivolous scenes covering a completely out-of-story story in which the characters of Tetris (whose names take those of the blocks) meet those of Puyo Puyo to triumph non-sense, development team educates the player to the various types of challenges, proposing billboards where the only enemy is time, direct bouts of bots managed by a good artificial intelligence and another couple of variations on the theme we prefer not to unveil.
At the bottom of this mode, you are in the middle of the turn: on the one hand you have understood the bases (but not the tactical ends, will target the veterans) of the gameplay so that you do not collect things in the face of other challengers (online or in local), on the other hand the challenge will just start, because, like all the puzzle games, Puyo Puyo Tetris offers the best of itself in direct confrontation with another human, with the dirty game and the cuddly cuddles to distract l ‘opponent.
And this is where the Switch version rises above the competition in an overwhelming way: we have also tested the PS4 version, identical in content and even preferable in level cleaning and color saturation, but the frenzy and the sense of competition (and camaraderie) guaranteed by the possibilities offered by the baby machine Nintendo are simply unmatched.
