Okay; first off. I have to make it clear. I like Puzzle Pop. There’s a level of care applied here especially in the game’s localization and release that’s unheard of for Sega when it comes to the series, it’s definitely a positive sign for their approach to their back catalog of franchise and their treatment going forward (hopefully Crazy Taxi and JSR get similar treatment!). However, it’s bogged down by a lot of baffling decisions that center entirely around this game’s Apple exclusivity.

I’ll get into that last, because there’s other things I’d like to talk about. The story mode is arguably the stand-out part of the package, which isn’t necessarily unusual for this series. As someone who loves the Fever-Era to hell and back, Amitie being made the center of attention; and her classmates and allies getting the focus is a very nice shift from the Ringo-oriented Puyo Puyo Tetris titles, it gives her and others some sorely needed development, and through the English Dub, we get, without a doubt, the BEST these characters have ever sounded outside of Japanese. The Story is yet another “all the characters are brought to one world,” shtick, which is literally the same premise of the last 3 games, but I can forgive this for the sake of Meena, the individual responsible for the plot, being absolutely adorable and her motives and backstory actually being quite mysterious in their set-up, something that can be said about the game’s story as whole, for worse rather than better.

The story feels bloated the more you play; it kinda feels like they shoved Arle and Ringo in just to have them there because they’re the main characters too I guess and they HAVE to be there because Amitie can’t fly by herself! Because of this, it feels like any development that COULD be utilized for the Fever cast is wasted on “hey guys look Ringo is here guys remember Ringo? We LOVE Ringo here at Apple Arcade,”. While I was initially very hooked on the main story, I eventually just kinda got bored and began flicking through the cutscenes (sacrilege, I know.) I’m also not really a fan of the ending(?) If you can call it that? I don’t know if we’re gonna get updates to add more story content but it seems really weird to just stop like that. Knowing Sega, we probably won’t get anything until they add Sig in, let’s just say, Late June, because they gotta milk Puyo fans for all their worth.

So, Story is good, but a little iffy. What about the other modes? Well, as much fun as playing against the CPUs are, I wanted to try playing against someone else online! I used an Apple TV for this game and -

I COULDN’T MATCH WITH A SINGLE PERSON AFTER TRYING 12 TIMES.

The game would just put me into matchmaking, and after I didn’t get a match, it would kick me back out to the main menu. Forget the fact that you have to essentially doxx yourself to add a Friend on Game Center, it genuinely seems like they DON’T want you to play this game with anyone who ISN’T right next to you. And it’s such a shame, because the side mode offering in this game is GREAT, but you just get tired after playing against the same 9 CPUS. (What the HELL were they thinking with a base roster this pitifully small?)

To end off, and I’m tired of getting told I shouldn’t complain about this, but the Apple exclusivity is beyond insane, and I cannot literally think of any way in which releasing lore-heavy Puyo game with heavy roots in previous games on a platform with no previous Puyo games available outside of Japan makes sense. It’s just poor business and it quite literally spits in the face of Puyo fans who WANT to support the series because you CAN’T BUY THIS ONE IT’S ON A DAMN SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE. Who knows if this game will be here in 2 years, considering a previous SEGA Apple-Arcade exclusive, a Chu-Chu Rocket sequel, just vanished and has shown NO signs of being ported to consoles. Don’t you just love living in 2024? Anyways, I hope you’ve enjoyed my little tangent. Hopefully SEGA and Apple fix the damn online.

The main complaint people have about this game is that it's on Apple Arcade, and yeah, Apple Arcade just doesn't have the same ease of access that Steam does, so it's a valid complaint... But hey! I have a Mac, and I had an Apple gift card to spend, so why not? I've been on a Madou Monogatari kick recently, and I needed a break from Madou Monogatari II's grindy dungeons, so here I am.

So, first impressions. Performance works great, at least on an M2 Pro. Audio is good, controls feel responsive, it works great in general. On the gameplay side, it's the same classic Puyo as always. You get some modes like Black Hole and Fever mode which is pretty cool, and the cast of playable characters is pretty cool (though most are locked behind story progress I think?). Very glad that Yu made an appearance in this game, she's consistently one of my favorite Puyo characters next to Harpy, Draco, and Witch. I find it hilarious how her line popping quote is just her going "OooOOOOooOOoooOoo!"

Adventure Mode is the main star of the show here, and it's a pretty alright mode; it's essentially just a bunch of mini-campaigns that branch off kind of like a New Super Mario Bros world map. It's essentially the "Story Mode" of the game, and it's how you unlock other characters. Given how some characters like Lemres and Dark Prince are locked behind a copious amount of Adventure Mode levels, it's not a great system, but some characters can be unlocked pretty easily via side-story keys. It's a flawed system for sure, but it also wouldn't be as bad if it weren't for the Modifier gimmicks this game decided to add. Essentially, both you and your opponent (more likely your opponent than you) will start off with certain modifier gimmicks. These can be as inoffensive as "reduced Garbage Puyos recieved" to "only gets 3 color Puyos" or "randomly drops Garbage Puyos on opponent" or "you become Draco Centauros and CANNOT ROTATE PUYOS" or "ALL GARBAGE PUYOS TURN INTO A RANDOM COLOR WHEN YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE" (essentially giving your opponent or you a high likelyhood to score a wicked chain). In my opinion, some of these modifiers kind of ruin some of the otherwise fun Puyo battles this game has to offer, and that's a damn shame. At the very least you can skip battles for a measly 100 Points, so you'll never truly get stuck in this mode.

Closing thoughts, I do think it's a shame that this game doesn't let you start out with alternative Puyo skins, instead relegating them to the Point Shop. Historically, I've always struggled with telling apart Puyo blues and purples and since I can't input a cheat code like in Puyo Puyo Tetris to unlock more distinct Puyo skins, I– Hold on, there's a colorblind setting in this game?!?!

Colorblindness Rating: A+
This game actually comes with colorblind settings, holy shit! I know Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 added colorblindness settings in a later patch, but since I never got PPT2, this is my first experience with these settings and I have to say, you have NO idea how happy being able to play Puyo Puyo without worrying about mixing up the Puyos makes me. If you want a reference as to what the game looks like with the Tritanopia filter I had on, here is a post I made with two images attached. It makes the characters look like weird blue people, but if it means I can be at peace playing Puyo Puyo, I'll take it.
Thank GOD that Sega finally listened to the colorblind crowd, I could not be any happier, let me tell you.

When I started this, I declared that unless anything drastic happened, it was my favourite Puyo game to date. God how that slipped by the end.


The laundry list:
- Absolutely no gameplay variety (only 1-on-1 Puyo 2 battles in adventure mode despite multiple rulesets being available in other modes)
- Very formulaic tickbox cutscenes (character has an overarching scenario which will be joked about in the first cutscene by that stage's character, said character then leaves very quickly after battle is over, no room for any development of anyone short of their assigned architype for their story mode)
- All over the place difficulty balancing (listed level is often not indicative of how hard they'll actually be because of their usage of support items, also said number decreases and increases at random anyway meaning there's no real skill curve)
- Clearly finished content being locked behind future updates (they're available to fight in the story mode being fully voiced and modeled, but only characters who have story modes are currently playable. On this note, please don't give every single playable character a story mode)
- Currently no ending in the game (I'm sure one will be patched in but to not even have an ending shows either how much of a rushjob this is or how desperately they want you to keep subscribing for the content updates in subsequent months and therefore payments)

All of this left me feeling extremely jaded with the game and honestly with Apple Arcade as a "legitimate" gaming platform in general. Great stuff has come out of it (on their final patches once the year or so of exclusivity is up mind you), but for Apple to continue to prove that they want console quality titles to be their flagships they need to ship them in a state comparable to console games. People moan about how many patches you need to do on console nowadays, but on said platforms I've never seen a game advertised as a system seller just tell you to come back for the ending in a few months time. It's ridiculous.

This game needs far more time in the oven as currently even despite the clear ambitions on show, it just isn't finished and therefore can't even begin to stack up to other far more accessible and affordable offerings in the series. Maybe in a year or so we'll see a final-ish build be shipped out to consoles and PC, but until then this isn't really worth your time, especially if you'd be going out of your way for a subscription and/or an Apple device to play it.