Puyo Puyo
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| Puyo Puyo | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Compile |
| Publisher(s) | Various |
| Platform(s) | MSX, Arcade, NEC PC-9801, Famicom, SNES, Game Boy, Sega Mega Drive, Sega Master System, Game Gear, PC-Engine CD, N-Gage, Virtual Console, Nintendo DS |
| Release date | Arcade 1991MSX 1991TurboGrafx-CD 1994Sega Mega Drive 1992Game Gear Sometime in 1994 |
| Genre(s) | Puzzle |
| Mode(s) | Single player, 2-player versus |
Puyo Pop, known in Japan as Puyo Puyo (ぷよぷよ?) is a computer puzzle game made in 1991 by Compile for various video game systems. Since its creation using characters from Madou Monogatari (魔導物語 Madō Monogatari?). It was created by Masamitsu "Moo" Niitani, the founder of Compile, who was inspired by certain elements from the Tetris and Dr. Mario series of games.
Before being branded as Puyo Pop internationally, the first game saw release outside Japan in 1993 as Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, Game Gear, and Master System (The SMS version was only released in Europe), and two years later as Kirby's Ghost Trap (European Super NES version) and Kirby's Avalanche (North American Super NES version).
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[edit] Gameplay
The object of the game is to defeat the opponent in a battle by filling their grid up to the top with garbage. Puyos, little gelatinous creatures with eyes, commonly fall from the top of the screen in a pair (although for Puyo Puyo Fever, they can fall in triplets, double pairs, and Bigpuyos). The pair can be moved left and right and rotated clockwise and counterclockwise 90°. (Bigpuyos, however, change color rather than rotate.) The pair drops until one puyo falls onto another puyo or the bottom of the screen, following the rules of gravity. The pair then breaks, so the other puyo(s) free fall until it (they) fall onto another puyo or the bottom of the screen.
[edit] Rensa (Chain)
When four or more puyos of the same color form together to create a group, whether vertical, horizontal, or in a Tetris-shaped piece for four puyos (not including diagonals, puyos must be adjacent to each other either horizontally or vertically), they pop and disappear. This is called a Rensa (Chain). Rensa can vary in size, groups, and steps. For example, the A pieces form groups in grids 1 and 2, but not 3:
When four or more puyos are connected in a group, they disappear. All puyos above those about to be cleared will then fall until they land onto other pieces or the bottom of the screen.
Combo chains are created in the same way, when more than four puyos form a group, or more than one group is formed at one time. All the puyos in a "combo" are erased at the same time. For example, grid 4 has a 5 combo, grid 5 has two groups of 4 for an 8 combo, and grid 6 has 3 groups of 5 for a 15 combo:
Fluent Rensa (Step-Chain) A Fluent Rensa is made when falling puyos form a new group of four or more puyos, causing a chain reaction where several puyos are erased one group at a time. For example, grid 7 will form a 2 rensa chain, grid 8 will form a 3 rensa chain, and grid 9 will form a 5 rensa chain:
[edit] Ojama (Garbage)
Whenever a rensa is achieved, Ojama (Garbage blocks, aka Nuisance Puyos or refugees) are sent to the opponent. The bigger the Fluent Rensa is, the more ojamas are sent to the opponent. Garbage in this game is determined by the overall score of the chain divided by 70 and rounded up to the nearest integer. For example:
1> Player A forms a group of 4 red puyos as a single chain.
2> The score card reads "40 x 1" (Simply by the following: (Puyo * 10) x (Puyo - 3) -> (4 * 10) x (4 - 3) -> 40 x 1).
3> 40 x 1 is the total score of the chain, so this is divided by 70, to give 0.571 (to 3.s.f)
4> This value is rounded up to the nearest integer, which is 1.
5> One ojama will fall on the opponents grid.
If more puyos are erased in succession due to a Fluent Rensa, the amount of garbage will keep going up until the chain ends. Ojama puyos are dropped in rows of 6, with the the extra ojamas distributed in random columns. If more than 30 ojamas are sent, they will be dropped in groups of 30.
[edit] Deciding Games
If the third column from the left is piled to the top then the game is over. In Puyo Puyo Fever, the third or fourth column from the left must be filled to end the game.
[edit] Game modes
The main game of Puyo Puyo is played against at least one opponent, computer or human. The game itself has three modes, Single Puyo Puyo, Double Puyo Puyo, and Endless Puyo Puyo.
[edit] Single Puyo Puyo
In this game, the player takes on the role of Arle Nadja, a 16 year old female spellcaster that has the pleasure of foiling Satan's plans. Satan wishes to take over the world, and Arle stands in his way (as the games' series develops, the plots get even more twisted). Arle must first however battle her way through 12 opponents before facing Satan, and unlike Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, with the exception of Rulue, they are not under Satan's control, nor were they created by him (for Rulue, she was brainwashed by Satan due to her own reasons). Once Arle has beaten Satan, the world is saved, so she can return home.
[edit] Double Puyo Puyo
In this mode, two players play against each other. In exactly the same fashion as before, by out-chaining one another, the player tries to fill up their opponent's grid. Many people[citation needed] complained that the rules of sending so much garbage blocks made games short-lived, no matter how many chains are sent. Therefore, in Puyo Puyo Tsu and onwards, Compile added the rule of Sousai, which enables players to counter opponents' attacks with chains of their own, sending any garbage blocks back to them as a result of overflow.
[edit] Characters
All the game's characters turned out to have fluent roles as the game series progresses.
[edit] Main characters
- Arle Nadja: The heroine to the series; she loves Carbuncle/Kar-kun (her pet) more than anything. She is also a sorceress, and can manipulate, fire, ice, and lightning among other things. During chains, she can be heard yelling, "Fire!" and "Ice Storm!" in a Japanese accent.
- Carbuncle: Arle's beloved pet, one that Satan tries to steal away from her. A fun-loving, curry eating, dragon-type creature that turns out to be one of the strongest players of Puyo later in the series. He is more of a helper in Puyo Puyo.
[edit] Beginner levels
- Skeleton T A skeleton that takes a liking to herbal tea (He sometimes calls it a potion which will make him virtually invincible.) His skills are among the weakest, and is usually one of the first opponents that you face.
- Nasu Grave An eggplant who wears square glasses. He mainly bounces up and down, as his stubby legs cannot run that fast.
- Mummy An Egyptian mummy who seems to be over-wrapped in bandages.
[edit] Normal levels
- Draco Centauros A female human-dragon hybrid who wishes to be the greatest rival to Arle, not just in Puyo Puyo. She, like a dragon, possesses the ability to breathe fire (shown in Puyo Puyo Sun). She has quite a fiery temper, and aggressively challenges other girls to beauty contests.
- Suketoudara A large fish with muscular arms and legs. He is very proud of these and tries to use them in any way he can. For some reason, whenever he's around, nearby people begin to crave fish.
- Sukiyapodes A sciapod (one legged monster) who looks quite young and/or baby-faced.
[edit] Difficult levels
- Harpy An angel like monster who sings enchanting songs (mostly out of tune, and very high-pitched.)
- Sasoriman A guard dressed like a scorpion.
- Panotty A sprite who plays panpipes. He likes to see people dancing to his music (or wants to.)
- Zombie A zombie which looks like it was put together with spare parts.
- Witch A witch dressed from head to toe in blue. She also gets the giggles at random moments.
- Zo-Daimaoh An Indian elephant with a mighty strength.
- Schezo A swordsman who longs for Arle's magic powers (or perhaps something else?).
- Minotauros Rulue's bodyguard and a bull with a scar over one eye.
- Rulue A girl with magic powers, like Arle, and has a liking to Satan, and will do pretty much anything he says. She is also a skilled martial artist, although her magic skills are not very good.
- Satan The comical villain of the Puyo Puyo series. He, like Draco, has dragon horns and cape wings . He also takes a liking to Arle and Carbuncle, but mostly Carbuncle. He is known as "Dark Prince" outside of Japan, for obvious reasons.
[edit] Original version and ports
Puyo Puyo was originally released for the MSX2 in 1991. [1] It was soon followed by a version for the Famicom Disk System called Puyo Puyo Disk Drive. A cartridge version for the Famicom would be released later in 1993. All of these versions are mostly one-player games with an Endless mode and mission modes, in which the player must eliminate all Puyos from the game field by using limited pieces.
A year after the MSX2 version, Sega released an arcade version, which heavily expanded the previous versions by including a one-player story mode and a competitive mode. Ports from the arcade version have been released for many different systems, including Super NES/Super Famicom, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, PC-Engine, Game Gear and Game Boy. However, most of these ports were only released in Japan.
The Sega Mega Drive version was re-released for the Virtual Console in Japan on December 2, 2006.
[edit] Brief series history
Puyo Puyo, originally released by Compile in 1991, featured characters from the 1989 RPG Madou Monogatari, also made by Compile. Puyos were enemy monsters in said game, as the rough equivalent of the slime monsters from the Dragon Quest game series.
Puyo Puyo really became popular when it was released as an arcade game in 1992. This was the first version that included the aforementioned one-player story mode, in which the human player plays against computer opponents of increasing difficulty. This feature was an immediate success because it allowed players to play by themselves. Future versions of Puyo Puyo for console systems also included this feature.
The most released version of Puyo Puyo to date is Puyo Puyo Tsu, that is said to have had 15 releases, one for each console, including a PC version and a remake.
Sega had hopes of releasing it outside of Japan, and, although they did, they had non-Puyo names nor any of the original characters. The first was released in February 1993 under the name Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (for Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis and Sega Game Gear). Nintendo would also get their version of Puyo Puyo for the Super NES outside Japan, but under the name Kirby's Avalanche (Kirby's Ghost Trap in Europe), which the original characters were replaced by the Kirby series ones.
After the demise of Compile in 2002, Sonic Team continued development of the Puyo Puyo series (as Sega held partial rights to the game since the first arcade release).
Nowadays, the Puyo Puyo merchandise uses its own original name, replacing the second Puyo with Pop. The first of these was Puyo Pop for the NeoGeo Pocket, which was a version of Puyo Puyo Tsu. Puyo Pop (Minna de Puyo Puyo in Japan) for the Game Boy Advance, was the first Puyo game to use characters from Puyo Puyo SUN and Puyo Puyo~n, most notably, those originally coming from Tsu to begin with.
Puyo Puyo Fever (Puyo Pop Fever outside of Japan) was the last game released by Sega for its Dreamcast system. It was also ported to the Xbox, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Playstation Portable, Mac OS X, Windows, PocketPC and Palm platforms, although only the DS and GameCube versions have been released in the US. The sequel to the game, Puyo Puyo Fever 2 has been given a release in Japan for the PS2, the DS, and the PSP. There's no confirmation as of yet if there will be any more multiple releases, and if any of them will be seen outside of Japan.
Recently, for the franchise's 15th anniversary, Sega released a version for the Wii, Playstation 2, PSP, and Nintendo DS known as Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary.
[edit] References
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Hardcore Gaming 101 - Puyo Puyo Details the entirety of the series and all of its spinoffs
- Puyo Puyo TV spots
- Puyo Puyo at the Killer List of Videogames
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