Who knows how many of you started your gaming career with Tetris, one of the longest-running titles in this sector but which, albeit with some changes that have slightly modernized it, is still very fun and exciting today. In Japan a variant of Tetris, which takes the rules, but bases them all on colors rather than geometric shapes, is Puyo Puyo (known in the West as Puyo Pop), even if this series has never depopulated in our shores unlike the famous Russian bricks. So why not take these two brands and make a crossover out of them? That's what SEGA probably thought when he came up with it Puyo Puyo Tetris.
Let the fun begin!
What we are faced with once we start the game is a riot of colors, the air of a party game (but don't think it's just laughter and fun!) You breathe right away. In the home screen we can choose whether to jump directly into a quick match, which is more designed for those who are already masters of the two styles of play: it is possible to choose between Puyo Puyo, Tetris o Fusion, the latter the real novelty (and perhaps the least successful) that deserves a separate discussion. For those who do not know how to play Puyo Puyo or Tetris (but in this case you are probably less than 10 years old), the Sonic Team, developer of the title, has included an exhaustive tutorial section, where you can learn the basic rules. , but also the most advanced moves, essential to be able to make combos that greatly raise the score. If, however, reading lines and lines of text in the tutorials is not for you rest assured (more or less), the Adventure mode it will gradually introduce you to the patterns of both Puyo Puyo and Tetris. The story is very simple but funny, but unfortunately the problem of "too many lines of text to read" reappears: a lot of dialogues that in the long run tire and break the rhythm of the game too much; in short, tutorial or adventure mode, get ready to read a lot of text.
There is something for everyone!
The one of which definitely there is no complain in Puyo Puyo Tetris is the amount of playable modes, in both single player and multiplayer. In addition to the aforementioned Adventure, we can face the CPU or other friends (up to a maximum of three) in the mode Big Bang: choosing whether to face everything with the Puyos or with the Tetris, you have to clean up the scheme in the shortest time and with as many combos as possible, in order to load our special attack that will pour everything on the vital bar of our opponent (s). Same rules, but that can only be faced with the Puyo, is the modality Endless Fever while, as it is easy to guess from the names, Endless Puyo it's a kind of survival mode in which you go on until defeat and Tiny Puyo it is a mode in which the jellies are smaller than normal.
However, even lovers of only Tetris have bread for their teeth: so here is the Maratona, in which the modality goes on to the bitter end Sprint in which you have to delete 40 lines in the shortest possible time and that Incredibly , where on the contrary we will have a time limit and we need to increase the score as much as possible. In any case, most of the modes can be tackled by choosing individually whether to play with Puyo or with Tetris blocks, so each player can choose the option in which he feels most ready to put a spoke in the wheel for his opponent. The mode is very funny swap e Party: if in the first, however, it will be necessary to face both alternating schemes and then deal with both the Puyo and the Tetris, in the second the aim will be above all to exploit the various power ups scattered in the schemes to put the opponent in difficulty.
So we come to the mode Fusion: if until now we could choose the style of play that best suits our abilities and if in Swap, despite having to face them both, the two types were alternated, in Fusion we will have both Puyo and Tetris blocks simultaneously in the same pattern, which greatly complicates our moves. It will therefore be necessary to think both in terms of colors and shapes, filling the lines as the Russian game wants but, as the Japanese teach, also paying attention to colors. As if that weren't enough, the pieces of Tetris are "heavier" than Puyo jellies, so they will crush the latter to make them rise to the surface, which could mess up the whole pattern you had laboriously created. A somewhat difficult way that quickly turns the fun into frustration, will probably be the one you play the least.
The online sector is excellent, with most of these modalities that can be faced with opponents from all over the world and with rankings that encourage you to do better and better, to try to excel among your friends, in your country or globally.
Simple but effective
When it comes to puzzle games it is important that everything is clear and easily understood with quick glances, especially at higher difficulty levels. On this point of view Puyo Puyo Tetris does not disappoint at all: colorful menus, full of great images, which immediately make you understand how to move in the many game modes. Even during the actual matches the patterns are clearly visible even in four-player sessions (different speech instead of playing only on the Switch tablet, in this case the problems are intuitive). The sound sector is slightly subdued, with the little voices of the protagonists nice, but repetitive in the long run, and an OST that does its duty, but that won't enter your head once the game is turned off (except for the remixed Tetris main theme, that's a classic that will never die ).
A small note that does not affect the overall judgment of the title in the least, but that it is right to report: Puyo Puyo Tetris is not localized, but only in English; not a problem since the modes are easy to learn and in any case the English used is really elementary, even that spoken by the characters in the adventure mode.
Modus Operandi: I played the Switch version of the game, completing the adventure mode and playing numerous games in the various modes, both on TV and portable.
