Puyo Puyo Tetris

Overview

Puyo Puyo Tetris is a competitive puzzle game developed by Sega's Sonic Team. As its name implies, it is a crossover between the Alexey Pajitnov's legendary Tetris franchise and Sega's Puyo Puyo series. Players will be allowed to choose between the gameplay systems of Puyo Puyo (based on Tsu) and "classic" Tetris (based on the Super Rotation System that debuted in Tetris Worlds). It is possible for a Puyo Puyo player to battle a Tetris player, and several gameplay modes see players alternating between both styles.

The game was originally released on a multitude of platforms on February 6, 2014, with PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Vita ports coming that December. However, the game remained exclusive to Japan due to licensing issues where another publisher held the exclusive rights to publish Tetris titles in English-speaking territories. However, Sega was eventually able to procure the rights and, on January 12, 2017, announced that the PS4 version and a brand new version for the Nintendo Switch would be released internationally later that year.

Basic Rules

In Puyo Puyo, players control multiple pairs of colored Puyo. Connecting four Puyo of the same color will cause them to pop, after which gravity will cause any aerial Puyo to fall to the ground. If this causes another complete set of Puyo to form, they will also pop, this time worth many more points than the first set. As this occurs, "Nuisance Puyo" is sent to the top of the opponent's tray, which fall as soon that the opponent drops their currently controlled set of Puyo. Nuisance Puyo cannot be matched with any other Puyo, but disappear when a Puyo adjacent to them pops. A player loses when a Puyo lands in front of an X placed at the top of the field.

In Tetris, players control tetriminos of varying shape. The player scores by forming complete horizontal lines, which will promptly disappear. If the player clears more than one line, garbage lines (lines that are complete with the exception of one random missing block) will form in the opposing player's field. By performing the "T-Spin" advanced technique, players can send even more garbage lines to the opponent. A player is eliminated when an incoming tetrimino overlaps with a currently-placed block.

Whenever a Tetris player battles a Puyo Puyo player, the Tetris player receives a vertical gauge beside their playfield. This gauge keeps track of the number of consecutive lines that the Tetris player has filled. Once the Tetris player's chain of filled lines ends, the contents of the gauge are converted into Puyo Puyo garbage via a currently-unknown formula. Visually, a Puyo Puyo player will receive individual clear blocks in their field from an attacking Tetris player, while a Tetris player will receive Nuisance Puyo-themed garbage lines from an attacking Puyo Puyo player.

Competitive Modes

Versus

The standard competitive mode. Each player chooses whether they want to play Puyo Puyo or Tetris, and battle until only one remains.

PuyoTet Mix

Players battle on a Tetris-sized field with both Puyo and tetriminos at their disposal. Tetriminos can only land on top of other tetriminos; any Puyo that a tetrimino passes through will be destroyed and quickly respawn once the tetrimino is placed. Occasionally, pieces that constantly alternate between a tetrimino and four Puyo appear. The four middle columns are marked with X's at the top.

This mode uses character-specific "dropsets", akin to those featured in Puyo Puyo's Fever and Transformation rules.

Swap

Each player has two boards: one for Puyo Puyo and another for Tetris. Players battle as they do in Versus mode, but the active board switches every 25 seconds. If the player is controlling a piece when the boards swap, the player loses control but the piece continues to drop; this means that it is possible for players to attack from the inactive board.

Party

The object of the game is to score as many points as possible until time expires; players do not lose when their field is clogged. Occasionally, items appear that can pass negative effects to the opposing player(s). Puyo Puyo uses character-specific dropsets in this mode.

Big Bang

Puyo Puyo players immediately enter Fever mode, while Tetris players enter Lucky Attack; both modes are designed to allow players to quickly and easily clear their field. After 40 seconds, all fields are cleared by a series of black holes, a life bar appears for each player, and damage is taken depending on each player's progress. This process repeats until only one player remains.

Endless Modes

Puyo Puyo Tetris includes a variety of endless score attack modes familiar to both Puyo Puyo and Tetris players. Endless Puyo Puyo and Endless Mini-Puyo challenge the player to clear as many Puyo as they can until his or her field clogs, with the latter mode giving players a 10x16 field as opposed to the standard 6x12. In Endless Fever, players enter Fever Mode and try to get a high score before time runs out. Tetris receives Marathon, 40-Line, and Ultra modes; these consist of a 150-line score attack, 40-line time attack, and 3-minute score attack respectively.

Player Characters

Puyo Puyo Tetris features more than twenty characters. Each character has two unique dropsets: a Fever dropset and a PuyoTet dropset.

The Fever dropset, applicable to Party mode, is a 16-piece sequence that determines whether an upcoming Puyo piece will be a pair, L-shaped, J-shaped, two pairs, or a 2x2 giant Puyo. The PuyoTet dropset consists of a 6-piece Puyo sequence, followed by two random tetriminos. Though the final piece appears to be a tetrimino, it will either be an alternating piece or a Tetris piece with less than four blocks.

Returning Puyo Puyo characters

• Arle Nadja and Carbuncle
• Draco Centauros
• Suketoudara
• Witch
• Schezo Wegey
• Rulue
• Satan
• Amitie
• Raffine
• Klug
• Sig
• Feli
• Lemres
• Ringo Andou
• Maguro Sasaki
• Risukuma
• Ecolo

Tetris-themed characters

• T
• S
• I
• O
• J and L
• Z
• X