It’s nice to see Sega releasing quite a handful of games this year. Even though this was originally released in Japan for, well, pretty much every existing console back in 2014, it took a while for Puyo Puyo Tetris to come to the West. Thankfully it also got ported to the Switch, where its fast-paced pick-and-play puzzle nature is best suited, even if it’s a tad bit more expensive than other versions.

Here’s the review.

Puyo Puyo Tetris is as straightforward as its name suggests: the game includes a normal Puyo Puyo mode, a normal Tetris mode, and many modes revolving around using one type of gameplay against the other, or even together. There’s no need to dive into the separate Puyo Puyo and Tetris modes (they are just like every single other iteration, with the same Dreamcast-era visuals and magnificent controls), so let’s talk about this game’s actual innovations.

 

The main selling point of Puyo Puyo Tetris is its Fusion mode. In this mode, you play both games at the same time, with the same objective as before: fill the lines on your opponent’s side. It might sound very confusing on paper and in pictures (and it really does at first glance), but those two completely different games managed to mix pretty well together. The main aspect you have to understand is that the rules are still the same for each type of puzzle block, therefore you have to handle your logistics with much more care and precision. The level of challenge is quite big in this mode, and it gets addicting pretty quickly, and the best part of it is that, whenever you feel tired about this new concept, you can always resort back to a relaxing round of Tetris or Puyo Puyo.

There are even more modes than that, with an honorable mention to Swap, in which you have both a Tetris and Puyo Puyo screens, with each one being swapped as the main focus of the gameplay every 30 or 45 seconds.

Another interesting aspect of Puyo Puyo Tetris is the inclusion of a quite lengthy campaign, with 100 levels, complete with lore, characters, (cheesy) puns and (very irritating) voice acting. Each level is pretty varied, sometimes requiring you to complete 30 Tetris lines in five minutes, or defeating a Tetris opponent while you’re playing Puyo Puyo, and so on. It never gets stale given its variety of missions, even though the story itself isn’t anything special. Then again, if you’re coming to a game like this for deep storytelling, you’re doing it very wrong.

 

Finally, you can’t ignore the fun that is this game’s multiplayer, be it online or local. Being able to take this funfest anywhere you want on-the-go, while still having a pair of controllers for multiplayer shenanigans (you only need one joycon in order to play it!) is great. I had zero lag issues when playing online, by the way, even though that is far from being the type of multiplayer my Switch will be focused on over the next months and/or years.

You might feel a little bit intimidated with the game’s pricetag, but honestly, given the amount of modes and playstyles, Puyo Puyo Tetris is easily worth the current asking price. You’re getting a Tetris game, a Puyo Puyo game, as well as a hybrid of those two games, all in one package.

Dare I say that, so far, this is the best game you can get on the Nintendo Switch besides Breath of the Wild, and I’m not saying this as a means of making fun of the Switch’s current lack of titles, but actually praising Puyo Puyo Tetris for actually being a pretty good game in its own right. It’s great fun for both newcomers to genre and those who grew up with that good old Tetris cartridge for the original Game Boy.

Also available on: PS4 (in the West); Wii U, 3DS, Vita, PS3, Xbox One (in Japan)