Puyo Pop Fever

"Pint sized wide screen Puyo Puyo Fever fun!"

I am a big fan of Puyo Puyo and mainly Puyo Puyo Fever (PPF or Puyo Pop Fever as it's known in English) for the GCN, Xbox PS2 and Dreamcast. Unfortunately, in North America only the GCN version has been released so the game is a little bit hard to come by. I originally got the PSP on launch day in Japan and picked up Puyo Puyo Fever for the PSP the day it came out here as well which was sometime very close to Christmas 2004.

This version of PPF plays graphically closest to the Dreamcast version of the game and is an excellent puzzle game for the PSP. It's pretty much identical to the other versions with the only omission being the lack of the 3D effect when you go into fever mode. I don't know why this was left out, it was left out of the Dreamcast version as well but it would have been nice to have the 3D fever mode too.

The graphics are excellent though, especially in comparison to the PS2 version of the game which for some reason doesn't quite look as nice as the GCN or Xbox versions. I have not played PPF on the Dreamcast but I'm pretty sure it probably looks decent on that system as well... ahem. The colours are bright and the game fits the wide screen quite nicely.

All of the original game modes are there including One player, 2 player and Endless mode along with something special. One great addition to the PSP version is the head to head mode that allows you to play against another player on the same system by holding the PSP sideways - one player using the directional keys/action buttons for movement and the shoulder buttons to rotate the puyos as they fall. This is an excellent addition to the game and is great for dates or for chilling with a friend or whatever. The game is relatively easy enough for non-gamers to get into and the varying difficulty levels allows you some challenge if the player is not too experienced too.

The gameplay of PPF is almost just like the Puyo Puyo we all know and love. You basically have to connect 4 blobs of the same colour (in almost any way as long as they are touching) in order to make them disappear. When you do this, you send ojamma or nuisance puyo to your opponent. This is basically garbage puyo that you have to clear by clearing coloured puyo touching it. The game becomes more interesting when you can set up chains or combos. The amount of ojamma puyo you send to your opponent increases a lot and it the goal of the game is to send as much junk as possible to drown out your partner and win the game.

However, in PPF when you clear puyo and if there are ojamma puyo waiting to be dropped you fill a Fever meter which appears at the side of your Puyo well. When this meter fills completely you go into Fever mode. Fever mode lasts up to 30 seconds depending on how much time you've built by sending ojamma puyo to your opponent. The more damage you do to your opponent, the more time you build up. When you go into Fever mode, you are given a pre-set combo of Puyo to set off a chain. If you get the right colours and set off a chain you send a lot of ojamma to your partner, then you are presented with another pre-set chain and it keeps going until you either kill off your opponent or run out of fever mode time.

When I first started playing this game I thought fever mode was just some kind of silly gimmick but it actually compliments the game beautifully. You have to find the right balance of sending ojamma puyo to your partner and waiting for your partner to send ojamma puyo to you so you can fill up your fever meter. Send too much ojamma to your partner and they can go into fever mode faster than you. Your partner cannot send ojamma puyo to you while they are clearing what you sent to them. So it can give them a nice advantage and adds to the strategy of the game. Fever mode, with its hyper music, makes the game much more interesting. You can turn the fever mode off though in 2 player mode if you like but it's so much more fun to play with it on.

The game comes with a rather lame story mode that came with the original versions but that's not the reason you will be playing the game. At least it wasn't the reason I played it. Even after you beat the story mode you will come back to play it again and again because it's just so much fun. You can selectively play different characters in practise mode in order to learn their strategies. I'm not so detailed enough that I know how to play different characters but it's there if you want to learn it.

On a negative note, the characters are no the same Puyo Puyo characters that we all know and love. Instead, Sonic Team found it fit to do away with all the old characters, except Arle and Carbuncle (who appears as a bonus if you clear Hara Hara mode without losing - I have yet to do this). The characters that are included in the game are cute enough but I really do prefer the old ones. I'm not sure why Sonic Team changed the characters but you get used to them after a while.

I did have one technical problem though with my version of PPF and it's that the game stutters from time to time when you lose or win. Everything freezes while it loads up the music for that sequence. Its quite irritating and breaks up the flow of the game but I"m used to it now. I posted on the board about it but nobody else seemed to have this problem so it might be that I just got a bum version or something.

Unfortunately the game only supports the regular 2 player mode found in the console games and not the crazy 8 player mode of the DS version. I haven't played the DS version so I honestly cannot compare the 2 however graphically, the PSP is as good (if not better than the PS2) as the console versions of the game. It's got the same music and all the fun too.

I prefer the Japanese voices and it's great that the game lets you switch if you want, only you can't have J-voices and English menus unfortunately but it doesn't matter to me, I know it well enough that I don't need it. The music for the game is great, my favourite track being the music that you get when you go into Fever mode. The other tracks are pretty decent too though a little more variety would have been apreciated. The remixed version of one of the original Puyo Puyo tracks is OK but they should have included all the classic tunes.

I sincerely hope they bring this to North America. The same fate of the PSP version may copy the PS2 and Xbox games as the release date has been postponed yet again at the time of this writing. However, the game is a no-brainer for importers. The moment you load the game up it actually adjusts itself for whatever language your system is set to so you don't even have to travel though Japanese options to find the English mode.

I do whole heartedly recommend this game and give it a solid 9. The head to head is a great addition that makes up for the lack of anything more than regular 2 player. However, I have not played 2 player with anyone and cannot comment on that. The technical issues may be isolated but the great gameplay makes up for it. Please, do check this game out! If you like Puyo Puyo in any way, you won't be disappointed.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/02/05