Puyo Pop

"What a great game . . .."

Hey - a pre-review warning; I can only assume that you belong in two camps of video-gaming: the ones who have played Puyo Puyo, and the ones that haven't. And judging by the fact that this is a website based in the US (In Texas, I believe - Yeee-Haw! Whoops, I'm digressing. Back to the review.), and by the fact that ''Puyo Puyo'' is about as well known in the US as an Asian actor in Star Wars (It's true - I looked), I'm naturally going to assume that whoever's reading this is unfamiliar with Puyo Puyo, and adjust the review from there.

But then again, you're reading a review about an obscure game (in the US) released years ago on a dead system that no one heard about . . . Gotta give *some* credit to you folks . . . ..

Anyhow, this is a *great* game. It's fun, not frustratingly hard (most of the time), it's designed for competitive play, and you can actually beat this game! Yes - whoever's heard of ''beating a puzzle game''? Has anyone beat Tetris or Columns? Huh? Yeah - thought so. If anyone walked around saying that they'd beat Tetris, I'd laugh at them and run like hell, since they're obviously disturbed. Yet again, I'm digressing - anyhoo, yes, you can beat the game. (In fact, I beat the game! Woohoo!) What a great game. Did I mention it's great? (A little foreshadowing on the ''Reviewer's Tilt'' portion . . ..)

GRAPHICS 7/10
It's a puzzle game, meaning that you don't need 12,000 dynamic gonad-shaded polly-wollies with tri-liter flirting to keep your interest, as would an action game (This whole sentence is jibberish. Ignore if you'd like). But by no means is this game bland. It's basically set up like this - the screen is divided into two empty caches for you and the opponent to store our ''puyo'', the blobs you want to get rid of (I'd like to think of them as ''bladders of doom''). Inbetween the two caches is a large divider column, which is there to divide the two columns, otherwise it'd be on big column. Within the column, however, is where the extra touches are. In the center, there's a portrait of the opponent you're currently facing. The character portraits ''react'' to you position, either with the satisfaction of beating you or with the trepidation of lass, which adds to the joy if you're a vindictive person, much like myself. In addition, thee's a little cute animal of some sort that dances for your amusement in the bottom of the divider, which in all honestly does absolutely nothing, but it is a nice distraction to look at. Tetris is as attractive as Michael Jackson (post-1995) compared to this gem.

SOUND 7/10
It's a puzzle game on a system with minimal sound qualities. Nothing special, in the bad-or-good kind. In all honesty, I'd say that this is a good thing. I've heard of too many games where there's a ''boop-de-boop'' instead of a ''beep-beep-moo'' like it should have been, or the music just sucked altogether. But Sega, oh-lovable, huggable Sega, goes the extra distance and adds great sound effects which adds tremendously to the gameplay. Each of the characters have a distinct voice, which they call you to a duel to the death with (or a puzzle game, whatever) before each round and also has a voice in the typical ''Japanglish'' voice whenever combos are pulled off. Normally, Japanglish would make me vomit in fury, but in this case, it works like a charm, kinda like Salsa on Frozen Pizza. It's quirky and fun enough where it doesn't stab you in the ears like 4,400 icepicks and adds additional personality to this great game unlike a certain game that ends with ''-ris'' and begins with ''Tet-''.

GAMEPLAY 10/10
Ahh . . . gameplay . . .. This is the best part of the game - well, it should be the best part of every game, if you want to get technical. It's addictive as hell, kinda like the crack of puzzle games. It's a good mix of Columns and Jell-O, if one was to make a comparison. Like Columns, one has to make the ''bladders of doom'' (A.K.A. ''BoD'') of the same color touch one another, up to four, and they dissappear. But, like Jell-O, they're made of pig's fe . . . whoops, they're very ''flexible'', in that you can make the shape of the line as convoluted as you like. And once the ''BoD'' chain disappears, the rest of them fall to the bottommost pile, filling any empty space below them.

But like Bill Cosby with Jell-O and his garbled jibber-jabber (pronounced ''Jibbah-Jabbah''), there's an added effect of amusement to this game as well. The main aspect of this game is competition, where you'd compete against several computer opponents in the single player mode or against a friend with the NGPC's (ill-fated) multitap link. The more ''Bladders'' you destroy, the more waste material you flush down to his side (These blobs, which I dub ''assblobs'', aren't of any color and is a general pain in the ass) and vice versa. You can, however, get rid of these ''assblobs'' by destroying the other ''BoD''s lying adjacent to it (or negating their assblobs with yours of your own). Like most other puzzle games, whoever gets his column filled loses. Simple enough.

One cannot describe the joy one feels after he has destroyed 5 chains of the ''Bladders of Doom'' and sees the sheer amount of ''assblobs'' he will rain down on his foe. It sure as hell beats getting a silly ''Tetris''. Take that, Tetris.

EXTRAS 7/10
Well, Puyo Pop has the usual sort of extra features, like single player(easy, normal, hard settings), multi-player, and practice (endless without an opponent). In addition, the game has a puzzle mode, where one would simply have to get rid of all the assblobs in the bottom of the column, as well as configuring the type of competition against the CPU in the main game as well as designating the look of the ''bladders of doom''. Pretty standard stuff, but it's more than Tetris ever had.

REVIEWER'S TILT 10/10
Ahh, what a great game . . .. One might think, after reading this review, that I've a thing against Tetris, but it isn't so. It's just that after playing this gem and its predecessors (this series has a mad following in Asia and is out for all platforms imaginable), it's hard to praise such a craptastic game. One might say ''Why, I won't stand for the ramblings of a mad fool!'' and go back into his cave and play Tetris on his NES. I'm fine with that. There's plenty of assfaces in this world who aren't willing to enjoy themselves, and I'm one of them (most of the time). But from one assface to another, I can't encourage enough of you to try this game. It's that great!

If this was a girl, it'd be the cute band-girl type with an off-sense of humor. It wouldn't be the cheerleader-with-no-brains type, nor would it be the one where everyone says, ''she's got a great personality''

OVERALL
Graphics 07/10
Sound 07/10
Gameplay 10/10
Extras 07/10
Reviewer's Tilt 10/10
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Overall 8.2/10

What a great game. I cannot recommend this game enough. In all honesty, I'd like to give this game a 10, but That would defeat the purpose of rating each of the factors that make this game. Even if you do not own an NGPC, there's enough incarnations to warrant a finding - Puyo Pop for the GBA, Dr. Robotnick's Mean Bean Machine for the Genesis, Kirby's Avalanche for the SNES, etc. Go get it and send those assblobs to your enemies!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/22/02, Updated 09/22/02