Sometimes I forget just how good Game Boy Color games can look and sound, playing this really makes me hope Nintendo adds GBC games to Nintendo Switch Online someday. Another great entry in this series, and like I said, some really great pixel art and arrangements of different Pokemon songs. Game plays as well as it should, and has a lot of neat unlockables to help with re-playability.

Something I'm kind of conflicted on is the way Challenge mode works. It's your standard Panel de Pon single player mode where you go up against one A.I opponent after the other, but in this game the A.I doesn't have their own puzzle board. Instead, they have a health bar, and getting chains or combos will take off health. Instead of seeing them get combos, the opponent will just randomly be like "hey I just got a 5 chain, no you can't see it, die" and you have to deal with any garbage being sent. It's an interesting twist on the usual formula, and it honestly is a neat way to bypass the limitations of the GBC, but I can't help but feel a little cheated when the opponent just gives me some insane garbage out of nowhere. But like I said, it's an interesting version of this mode.

Overall I would have loved to have owned this back in the day, it's the perfect portable version of this game for the time, and kind of makes the N64 Pokemon Puzzle League look like joke with how clean and lovely the presentation is here.

Gameplay: AMAZING
Music: Eh
Replayable? Kinda
Streamed? No

Extra Notes? It was more puzzle league, which is great, but a weird title all together.

This is Tetris Attack with a Pokemon skin on it. The soundtrack has some really fun, boppin' renditions of songs from the Gold & Silver era. It's my favorite part of the game, and that's not to be dismissive of the rest of it. There are a few different game modes, none of which are very challenging or novel, but at least you get some variety.

Pokemon Puzzle Challenge is a fun on-the-go puzzle fix. On my emulation handheld, I think I prefer this over the SNES's Tetris Attack because the controls don't use the shoulder buttons.

Intelligent Systems, you beautiful bastards. The spritework here is absolutely insane, just so gorgeous here, some amazing portraits of the Johto gym leaders, along with a very cute sprite of the Gold & Silver protagonist. This is a great, great spin-off; not just one of those old spin-offs that take an IP’s name and slaps it on a puzzle game, this feels like an actual Pokémon game. A great companion to Gold & Silver versions, too, the way it highlights its starters and baby evolutions. It was just a real treat, and considering the console version of this is more of a Pokémon anime game instead of a Pokémon game, this is definitely the one to play. Between this and the Zelda ‘Oracle’ games, it’s really spectacular what some folks were able to do with the spritework on such limiting hardware. Like, this might be one of the best looking Pokémon games ever.

I revisited this game for the first time in at least 15 years when I got my Analogue Pocket and I swear this is the most underrated Panel De Pon/Puzzle League installment.

The fact that IntSys managed to make a Puzzle League game on the Game Boy Color that feels nearly identical gameplay-wise compared to the console games is a colossal achievement (especially compared to Game Boy Tetris Attack). Nothing about the moment-to-moment gameplay feels compromised at all. And I love how vibrant the game is - the Analogue Pocket really makes this game's visuals shine through.

The only real change from the console versions is that you don't actually see your opponent's field in Challenge mode but it plays functionally the same - fend off the opponent's garbage attacks long enough to defeat them. I'm not someone who ever really looked at my opponent's playing field in Puzzle League anyway, so this never really bothered me.

My only real complaint with this game is that some of the character unlocks feel downright unreasonable. I'm supposed to get 100,000 on Garbage mode to unlock Magby??? How???? I can only get to level 50 or so in Garbage and even then my score is like 25000 or something.

Anyway, game's good. Revisiting this game honestly makes me glad I bought an Analogue Pocket.