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Puyo Pop Fever

Puyo Pop Fever, known in Japan as , is a puzzle game released on a wide variety of systems and was developed by Namco Hometek. Sega published all versions of it in Japan, but due to a reluctance to carry it over to other countries, international versions of it were sometimes published by others. Sega of America published the U.S. GameCube version, Atlus published the U.S. Nintendo DS version, Sega of Europe published the European GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox versions, and THQ published the European Game Boy Advance version. The PlayStation Portable version was listed for a U.S. release, but has not been released in the United States.

Gameplay Information

The game's story mode follows the adventure about Amitie, a spunky girl who attends a magic school, where she is taught by Ms. Accord how to cast magical spells using Puyos, which are blob-like jelly creatures of varying colours and facial expressions. Magicians using Puyos for battle have a field in which groups of Puyos can fall (much like Tetris) and must be arranged to "pop" them, which occurs when they arrange in certain patterns so that four of the same colour touch each other. This casts a "spell," which will disrupt the opponent's Puyo arena. The loser is determined when one of the middle two columns on his or her field fills up to the top.

A new addition to the Puyo Pop game mechanics is the Fever Mode. Fever Mode occurs when a bar in the middle of the screen is filled up. To fill the bar, one must "offset," or counterattack "garbage Puyos," which are colourless and hard-to-pop Puyos, being sent to the field by the opponent. Every chain, which is a single popping of Puyos, will fill one space in the Fever Gauge until it is full, which is when Fever activates. In Fever Mode, a pre-designed puzzle will fall onto a cleared field. In a limited amount of time, one must find a "trigger point" in the puzzle, which will cause a major chain to go off and attack the opponent. Once a chain is made, another puzzle falls, bigger and more complicated than the previous one. This keeps occurring until time runs out, then it returns the player to his or her original field.

Multiplayer Battles

Multiplayer is argued to be the best feature of this game with a near-unanimous opinion among Puyo Pop players, especially in the Nintendo DS version which supports 2 to 8 players, as opposed to the others which only support 2 or 4. In this mode, one can play as any available character.

Endless

There is also an Endless Mode, where one can practice Fever Mode, complete small tasks as they are given, and play good old-fashioned Puyo Pop. However, the grid and All Clear rules remain the same as they do in Fever, so it's not exactly classic (in the original Puyo Pop series, you could use the top of column 4 fully for building chains if needed. If you fill column 4 all the way in this form of endless, you lose).

Story

In the main story of the game, Accord has lost her Flying Cane, the equivalent of a magic wand, and claims to have a reward for the student who can find it. The player plays the role of Amitie as she ventures across the Puyo Pop Fever world to find the cane, while meeting many wacky characters along the way and battling them. In a harder version of the story mode, one plays as Amitie's rival: Raffine. Which story mode one is playing determines what characters one will meet and which ultimately finds the wand. When playing as Raffine near to the end of the game, it is revealed that Accord never actually lost her flying cane. She then plans on revealing her and Popoi's secret, but fails in her ending, as she is knocked unconscious by Accord, losing all memories of the flying cane incident. She regains consciousness near her school where Amitie and her friends congratulate her.

Characters

The different characters of Puyo Pop Fever offer different gameplay. With the addition of groups of three and four Puyos, unlike previous Puyo Pop games, each character has his or her own pattern of which different types of Puyo groups fall onto the field. All the characters are playable, but not in Story Mode, where one must be Amitie or Raffine, respectively. There are also two hidden characters, one possessing a powerful pattern of Puyo groups. : Amitie is a spunky, adventurous girl who attends the magic school with Raffine and the rest of the gang. She wears a large, red hat shaped like a Puyo and is the first to set out on the quest to find Accord's cane. She doesn't mind insults too much, and acts ignorant when Raffine insults her. : Oshare Bones is a skeleton who follows the steps somewhat to Skele-T. He often thinks highly of himself, and tends to put down others who aren't as stylish as him in his opinion. : A purple-clad boy in Amitie's and Raffine's class, who is rumored to have a demon possessing him (the demon is actually possessing his book). His attack titles are based on astrological/Latin-based words. Klug is the German word for "clever". : Dongurigaeru is a frog that rolls around in an acorn top. The only thing he ever says is "ribit". : Rider is generally shy girl that tends to stutter often. Her magic involves the power of thunder, summoning thunderbolts and lightning sparks (all named in Italian). : Onion Pixy tends to just say gibberish, mostly relating to the word "onion". : A fish prince thinking he's a king. He's a bit conceited. : Raffine is a snobby girl from a wealthy family who decides to beat Amitie to the punch and find the cane before she does, thus earning Accord's respect. She often exclaims French words. : A happy-go-lucky ghost girl. Yu is derived from the former part of yūrei (幽霊), the Japanese word for 'ghost'. In the English dub, she has a habit of constantly shouting "Yes, indeedy!" : Tarutaru is a large classmate of Amitie. : A horribly conceited bird, who overuses the phrases "mmm-hmm" & "uh-huh" and other phrases related to those phrases. : Accord is the teacher of Amitie's magic class alongside her cat puppet Popoi. She is also the diabolical mastermind behind the events transpiring within the PPF world involving her Flying Cane and Popoi. Most of her attacks are Italian words dealing with music, such as allegro. Whether she is supposedly evil or not, is unknown. : Frankendad, lacking the proper language skills, insists on grunting to get his message across. Frankenson, however, is the "mouth" for his dad and translates for his lingustic-disabled father, with his sentences often starting as,"Daddy says," or "my daddy says" : The original heroine of the previous Puyo Pop classics makes a return from the Compile games as a side character who was "separated" from her own Puyo universe. In a nod to the gameplay of the original Puyo Pop, all of her drops are two-sets. : Popoi is the diabolical looking cat puppet that Accord carries around with her. He is also the boss character of the game. The relationship between the two is largely unknown, and it is widely believed that one is controlling the other. He prefers being called, "Prince of Darkness." : Carbuncle is Arle's sidekick and the secret boss character of the game. Carbuncle really does not speak but just shouts "Ta-da".

Other information

Puyo Pop Fever (And its sequel, Puyo Pop Fever 2, already out in Japan) is the latest installment in the popular Puyo Pop (or Puyo Puyo in Japan) puzzle game series. Compile, the original creator of the Puyo Pop series, played no part in the creation of this game, for it has been gone from the video game industry for a while. Sonic Team began this project to keep the series alive, but redesigned the entire package into something of its own, adding new features, new cast characters, and gameplay elements along the way. Despite the absence of Compile, the protagonists of the original Puyo Pop series, Arle the brown-haired spellcasting warrior and Carbuncle the little yellow beam-shooting rabbit, play a cameo role in this game, Arle being "lost" from her own world and Carbuncle being a final boss and secret playable character. It received much fanfare and praise in Japan, and is still going strong with the recent Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable versions.

One thing to note is that the "All Clear" sound is the 1-up tune from Compile's shoot'em ups (Aleste, MUSHA, Zanac, etc)

Replay Bug

There has been an exploit in versions of Fever, such as the Dreamcast and PC versions, that allow a player to fight Carbuncle without entirely meeting the original requirements, and also unlock both Popoi and Carbuncle at the same time. Whilst playing on the HaraHara course, if the player faces Popoi as Stage 8, lose to him on purpose whilst counting the continues you've lost until you've lost your 6th continue. As you're about to lose your 7th, when the game asks you to save the replay, go to yes, and the game will load the replay screen (you don't have to save the replay, but you can if you want to). Exit the save replay screen and continue the game. The game now has to reload the data for Stage 8, and because it checks how many continues you've used beforehand, you'll find out that the battle music changes to the classic Puyo Puyo theme, and you're fighting Carbuncle instead of Popoi. Either beat him, lose to him, or soft reset the game and check out the Free Battle section, you'll find that both Popoi and Carbuncle are unlocked in one go. As a result, you do not unlock the Carbuncle cutscene for the gallery.

15th Anniversary Edition

Puyo Pop Fever: Puyo 15th Anniversary Carnival Edition was released on March 17 2006 in commemoration of the original release of Puyo Puyo. This version may be downloaded free of charge for PC. It features online battling as well as a chat lobby for matchups and such. "Present" matches are also available in which the player battles against a special CPU character for the chance to win one of many prizes.

Worldwide Distribution

While becoming popular very quickly in Japan, the game hasn't received much attention from other parts of the world, mainly because of the lack of international distribution. In the U.S., it has been released for the Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo DS, with an unreleased PlayStation Portable version. A U.S. Xbox release was once planned, but cancelled. Europe has received all three main console versions as well as the Nokia N-gage, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable, and the Nintendo DS versions.

Lesser Known Versions

While noted for being released on today's most popular gaming platforms, Puyo Pop Fever has actually been, much like its highly multi-platform Puyo Pop ancestors, released across several smaller platforms in Japan, including a few mobile phone services. Sega released them in an easily memorizable pattern as an almost "once a month" system throughout 2004, each being on the 24th day of every month. The only versions known to have broken this "24th day" rule are the Arcade, the PlayStation 2 version, and the Xbox version (released April 4th 2004 in Japan). The main console versions (Dreamcast, Nintendo GameCube, and PlayStation 2) were re-released in Japan on November 4, 2005 under the "Sega Best" label and budget price. The official Japanese site lists the following releases: Arcade (November, 2003), docomo (May 24, 2004), Macintosh (June 24, 2004), Vodafone (June 24, 2004), au (July 24, 2004), Windows (September 24, 2004), Pocket PC (October 24, 2004), and Palm OS (November 24, 2004).