Two Worlds Collide! Puyo Puyo Tetris!

(Sob... sniffle) Uhh... Okay is this thing on? H-Hey beautiful people of the Internet! ...
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... Sin?
(Shut up Ren I'm not doing that this week! I can't believe you're still doing a review even after what happened!) But Sin we said... Oh never mind...

As you can probably tell Sin is feeling just a teensy-tiny bit down this week. (Pfft...) She's been super excited to review the game we planned to do this week, but as you can probably guess... Our preorder didn't arrive on time. In fact, it's still not freaking here! I SWEAR I am going to break that Vita if it doesn't get here soon! Calm down Sin... go break some Puyos and take your mind off it, okay? (God damn freaking...) So... Yeah! Just a little upset! Anyway without further ado I present to you... Puyo Puyo Tetris!

So everybody knows Tetris, the famous puzzle game developed in Russia about stacking tetrominos to destroy lines and score points. But what do get when you combine this amazing puzzler with Puyo Puyo, a Japanese puzzle game where you join falling blobs into matching coloured groups of 4 to create combos and attack your opponents with flurries of unmatchable Garbage Puyo to fill their half of the screen and declare victory!

A colourful game with a colourful cast and plenty more to unlock, isn't this game perfect already!?
...Your passion for collectibles is still a collective nuisance 

The first thing you get is a game you can't read. (Ah! Sin you came to join in!) (Yeah yeah hey shut up I'm speaking my mind here) I mean it's not really anyone's fault but Puyo Tetris was never released outside of Japan and probably never will be. So if you want to experience this amazing game you'll have to import, Sony being the great guys that they are didn't region lock the PS3 or PSVita so those are great choices to try it on!

...Anyway... As I was saying: because the whole game is in Japanese, the language barrier does become a bit of a problem. Only a little though! Although navigating the menus is pretty much fine, because they utilize pictures, colours and logical order so we can figure everything out ourselves, the game's story mode is really just a picture show unless you can read Japanese, otherwise you're left with just the cute voices and character portraits to tell what's going on. I'm pretty sure there's something to do with a spaceship crash and some brainwashing, but don't hold me to that. It's kinda disappointing we can't understand it. But it's a puzzle game first and foremost so why care about the story? True...

"Now tell me! What are the size of Sin's breasts!"
"Ah... uh.... maybe... this big?"
Ren what the hell are you saying over there!?

The game itself in terms of all stylisation including characters, sounds and the general look and colourful atmosphere of the game are all much more like Puyo Puyo, taking on a theme of bright vivid colours and of course characters drawn in that cute 2D style so standard of the Puyo games. If you ever played a Puyo Puyo game you'll probably recognize a few of the characters present at least, each with their own unique sounds and spells they call out over their combos that really gives the game the feeling of 'Yes! This is a real battle now!' The game also shares the love by introducing it's own Tetris characters with that Puyo style, it's really neat that the help bring the Tetris universe to life like that, but all those characters are named after the freaking blocks! It really ticks me off when I have to tell people the protagonist is called T (and I don't mean they guy that calls everyone FOOL although I really wish he did...), and his sidekick that is just constantly saying what he needs to do in the bathroom is called O. Like what even?

As for the great gameplay mode on offer you've got your standard solo marathon version of each puzzle, but the real draw of the game is everything else of course. Tetris VS Tetris, Puyo VS Tetris, the same again but with power-ups that can make pieces drop instantly on your opponent's screen or even adding an extra block to each tetromino, it's got everything. Hell the designers really went to town on this one and thought of every possible combination huh? They did, you can even play both together! The mechanics are strange because the tetris blocks crush the puyos and any garbage blocks the opponent has dropped on you, making it appear on top. It's really cleverly done and everything but doing that screws up my combos so much I just hate it! Yeah but this mode is much more lenient for combos too, giving you a set time after every match to make more, and wow does the damage really stack up for a method so easy! Although it looks more complicated it's really noob friendly because you don't have to stack Puyos so one group disappearing will lead to another and so on, you can just match four wherever you want over and over again to win, that's why Ren's so good at that mode. Hey I'm right here you know! Yeah yeah... hehe.

Ren your stacking is making me wanna gag.
Shut up! I promise you I know what I'm doing.

For seasoned puzzle veterans there's also still the endless mode where you can see how many opponents in a row you can defeat before failing. And for the filthy casuals out there, Big Bang mode sets up the combos perfectly for you, all you gotta do is drop the pieces in the right place and hope that overall you make the most combos, it's pretty mindless but also a lot of fun, at least for the first try or so.

The thing about combining two different puzzle games like this into a primarily versus experience can cause a little trouble with game balance, but overall Puyo Tetris has done this very well and the only reason to choose Puyo over Tetris when you play or vice versa is your own skill and preference, the real thing that wins you the game is how fast you can set up combos. Neither game really deals more damage to the other, there's significantly more space to fill with garbage on a Tetris board but since the garbage fills from the bottom rather than the top, it's extremely hard to remove, so in the end everything balances perfectly.

Bayoen!
What does that even mean?
I have no clue, but if it throws Puyo in your face I don't really care

Puyo Tetris is an undoubtedly brilliant puzzle game and is a brilliant expansion to the worlds and gameplay of two amazing games. though I would recommend it significantly more if you're already a Puyo fan, Tetris fans will also find a lot of enjoyment in the game even if they're not into Puyo and the addition of characters for them to play as will be a very welcome feature. Even if you're a fan of only one of the puzzles at first, or have never played one of them, there is no doubt in our minds that you will grow to love the super fun puzzle action and unique charm this game has to offer and- *Ding Dong*

... What? Was that...?
Sin? Where are you going?
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Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Argh... What the hell Sin? Why did you tackle me?
It'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereit'shereeeeeeeeeee!! SQUEEE!
Wait is that!? Holy crap let's go play this thing! No! no! Don't turn it on yet wait for-! Uh.... Ah... Thanks for sticking around to read our review of Puyo Puyo Tetris! I'm sorry it was so long there was just so much to say... uh... hey wait Sin is that the opening cutscene!? I told you to waiiitt!