is a puzzle video game released in 1991 by

Compile In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

for the

MSX2 MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then vice- ...

. Since its creation, it uses characters from ''

Madō Monogatari ''Madō Monogatari'' is a series of first-person dungeon crawler role-playing video games by Compile. The first game was released in 1990 for MSX2. Sega published the Game Gear remakes based on ''1-2-3''. The characters of this series would lat ...

''. It was created by Masamitsu "Moo" Niitani, the founder of Compile, who was inspired by certain elements from the ''

Tetris ''Tetris'' (russian: link=no, Тетрис) is a puzzle video game created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. It has been published by several companies for multiple platforms, most prominently during a dispute over the approp ...

'' and ''

Dr. Mario ''Dr. Mario'' is a 1990 puzzle video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom, and Game Boy. It was produced by Gunpei Yokoi and designed by Takahiro Harada. The soundtrack was composed by Hirokazu ...

'' series of games. The game was released by

Tokuma Shoten is a publisher in Japan, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. The company was established in 1954 by Yasuyoshi Tokuma in Minato, Tokyo. The company’s product portfolio includes music publishing, video game publishing, movies, anime, magazines, m ...

on the same day of the MSX2 release under the name and as part of the Famimaga Disk series for the

Family Computer Disk System The commonly shortened to the Famicom Disk System or just Disk System, is a peripheral for Nintendo's Family Computer home video game console, released only in Japan on February 21, 1986. It uses proprietary floppy disks called "Disk Cards" f ...

. A year after the MSX2 and FDS versions,

Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...

released an arcade version, which heavily expanded the previous versions by including a one-player story mode and a two-player competitive mode.

Gameplay

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. In Single mode, the player takes on the role of

Arle Nadja The big things of Australia are large structures, some of which are novelty architecture and some are sculptures. There are estimated to be over 230 such objects around the country. There are big things in every state and territory in Australi ...

, a 16-year-old female spellcaster that has the pleasure of foiling the Dark Prince's plans. The Dark Prince wishes to take over the world, and Arle stands in his way. As such, Arle must first however battle her way through 12 opponents before facing the Dark Prince. With the exception of Rulue, they are not sent by the Dark Prince, and mostly they just want to pull shenanigans with her (for Rulue, she fell in love with the Dark Prince). Once Arle has beaten the Dark Prince, the world is saved, so she can return home. As in all main Puyo games, the story mode consists of playing Puyo matches against a fixed sequence of characters in one of three courses. In Double 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. Since the rules of sending so many garbage blocks made games short-lived, no matter how many chains are sent, Compile added the rule of Offsetting in ''Puyo Puyo 2'' and onwards. This lets players counter opponents' attacks with chains of their own, sending any garbage blocks back to them as a result of overflow. In endless mode, the player must continually match puyos to get the highest score they can. In Mission mode, the player must complete 52 missions requiring the Puyos on the field to be eliminated by using limited pieces.

Development

An English-translated version of the arcade original was created and released internationally which replaces the original voice work, changes many of the characters' names, and removes the wings of the Harpies (which are called Dark Elves in the English version). Sega had re-released ''Puyo Puyo'' for the

Mega Drive The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master System. Sega released it in 1988 in Japan a ...

on December 18, 1992 and the

Game Gear The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console released by Sega on October 6, 1990, in Japan, in April 1991 throughout North America and Europe, and during 1992 in Australia. The Game Gear primarily competed with Nintendo's Game Boy, ...

on March 19, 1993 in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. The Game Gear port of ''Puyo Puyo'' contains an English version named ''Puzlow Kids''; this version appears whenever the game cartridge is used in a North American or European system. A

PC-9801 The , commonly shortened to PC-98 or , is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2000. The platform established NEC's dominance in the Japanese personal computer market, and, by 1999, more th ...

port was released by

on March 19, 1993, the same day the Game Gear port was released.

had re-released their version ''Puyo Puyo'' for the

Family Computer The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit Third generation of video game consoles, third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redes ...

itself on July 23, 1993, which added a 2-player competitive mode.

Banpresto (formerly Coreland Technology Inc.) was a Japanese video game developer and publisher headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. It had a branch in Hong Kong named Banpresto H.K., which was headquartered in the New Territories. Banpresto was a partly-own ...

released a version for the

Super Famicom The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Euro ...

under the title on December 10, 1993. A port to the

Game Boy The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same ...

was developed by

Winkysoft was a Japanese video game developing company. They have made video games for console systems primarily for the Japanese video game market, as well as a handful of arcade games. On December 1, 2015, Winkysoft filed for bankruptcy. Notable game ...

, published by

and released on July 31, 1994 under the original name.

NEC Avenue was a Japanese music and video game publisher. History NEC Avenue was founded in 1987 as a record label within NEC. NEC Avenue eventually got involved with video games, and secured licenses to produce console versions of arcade titles from Sega ...

released their version of ''Puyo Puyo'' for the

PC Engine The TurboGrafx-16, known as the outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation, commonly known as the 16-bit era, though ...

's CD-ROM² on April 22, 1994 titled .

CRI Middleware (formerly CSK Research Institute Corp.) is a Japanese developer providing middleware for use in the video game industry. From the early nineties, CRI was a video game developer, but shifted focus in 2001. History CRI started out as CSK Research I ...

released their version of ''Puyo Puyo'' for the

FM Towns The is a Japanese personal computer, built by Fujitsu from February 1989 to the summer of 1997. It started as a proprietary PC variant intended for multimedia applications and PC games, but later became more compatible with IBM PC compatibles. ...

in December 1994. The game was ported to Amiga by request of ''

Amiga Power ''Amiga Power'' (''AP'') was a monthly magazine about Amiga video games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Future plc, and ran for 65 issues, from May 1991 to September 1996. Philosophy ''Amiga Power'' had several principles which com ...

'' magazine and was featured on a

cover disk Covermount (sometimes written cover mount) is the name given to storage media (containing software and or audiovisual media) or other products (ranging from toys to flip-flops) packaged as part of a magazine or newspaper. The name comes from the ...

under the name '' Super Foul Egg''. It was then ported to

RISC OS RISC OS is a computer operating system originally designed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England. First released in 1987, it was designed to run on the ARM chipset, which Acorn had designed concurrently for use in its new line of Archim ...

on Acorn by Owain Cole (and featured on an

Acorn User ''Acorn User'' magazine was founded by Acorn Computers in 1982, contract-published by Addison-Wesley, to coincide with the launch of the BBC Micro. It covered the range of Acorn home computers, the BBC Micro and Atom at first and later the Elect ...

cover disk), and finally ported to Java. In late 1995 it was ported to the

Apple IIGS The Apple IIGS (styled as II), the fifth and most powerful of the Apple II family, is a 16-bit personal computer produced by Apple Computer. While featuring the Macintosh look and feel, and resolution and color similar to the Amiga and Atari ST ...

by Bret Victor. Before being branded as ''Puyo Pop'' internationally, the first game saw release outside Japan in 1993 as ''

Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine ''Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine'' is a falling block puzzle game developed by Compile and published by Sega. It was released for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive in North America and Europe in November 1993, and ported to the Game Gear in 199 ...

'' in North America and Europe for the

Mega Drive/Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

as well as the

and

Master System The is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was originally a remodeled export version of the Sega Mark III, the third iteration of the SG-1000 series of consoles, which was released in Japan in 1985 and ...

(in Europe and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

); this version omitted the characters and setting of the original release, replacing them with characters from the ''

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog ''Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog'' is an animated series that was based on the '' Sonic the Hedgehog'' video game series produced by Sega of America, DIC Animation City, Bohbot Entertainment and the Italian studio Reteitalia S.p.A. in associ ...

'' animated series. Two years later, it was released as '' Kirby's Avalanche'' (''Kirby's Ghost Trap'' in Europe) for the

Super NES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in E ...

in North America and Europe respectively, utilizing characters from

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

's ''

Kirby Kirby may refer to: Buildings * Kirby Building, a skyscraper in Dallas, Texas, United States * Kirby Hall, an Elizabethan country house near Corby, Northamptonshire, England * Kirby House (disambiguation), various houses in England and the Unit ...

'' series.

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed the arcade version of ''Puyo Puyo'' on their December 15, 1992 issue as being the fifth most-successful table arcade unit of the month. The Mega Drive version was a bestseller in Japan for four months.

Legacy

The

version was re-released for the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

Virtual Console A virtual console (VC) – also known as a virtual terminal (VT) – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD, illumos, Unix ...

in Japan on December 2, 2006, while the arcade version was released on April 12, 2011. The arcade VC release features online play. On August 22, 2019, the

Arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated game machine ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade game's hardware ** Arcade system board, a standardized printed circuit board * Amusement arcade, a place with arcade games * ...

version was re-released for the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

under the brand, with online-playing features.

References

External links

*
Hardcore Gaming 101 - Puyo Puyo
Details the entirety of the series and all of its spinoffs {{Puyo Puyo series 1991 video games Arcade video games Compile (company) games Famicom Disk System games FM Towns games Game Boy games Game Gear games Lavastorm games Mobile games MSX2 games Multiplayer and single-player video games N-Gage games NEC PC-9801 games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo Switch Online Sega Genesis games Puyo Puyo Sega Genesis games X68000 games Super Nintendo Entertainment System games Tokuma Shoten games TurboGrafx-CD games Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Toshiaki Sakoda Virtual Console games Winkysoft games CRI Middleware games ja:ぷよぷよ#旧世代ぷよぷよ（旧ぷよ）