G4TV

The Puyo Pop series has long-since proved that pruning ponderous piles of pretty-colored blobs can be positively addicting, especially when playing with a partner or a pack of friends. Puyo Pop Fever on the DS provides all the simple and compelling gameplay of the previous Puyo puzzlers, plus some new tweaks, and multiplayer options galore.

Beware of Falling Puyos

The gameplay here is very simple: colored blobs called puyos fall from the top of a pit and stack up at the bottom. Stick four or more same-colored puyos together in any shape and they will pop. This drops all the puyos above down, which could result in four more popping, forming chains and earning you lots of points.

Fever brings some new tweaks to the nearly 15-year-old Puyo formula. Where falling puyos always came in pairs in previous games, here you’ll often see three or four combined to form angled shapes or giant blobs. Additionally, Fever is much more focused on playing against someone else. For multiplayer, the game allows up to eight players to compete with a single cartridge, and sports a slew of gameplay modes and options.

On the single-player side, unless you’re playing in original mode, where the game plays like the older Puyo titles, you’ll be facing off against an AI opponent. Popping puyos and creating chains results in gray-colored puyos for your opponent. These can only be cleared when an adjacent puyo is popped, and can be blocked by popping puyos before the gray ones fall.

We've Got the Fever

Every time you block a falling puyo your fever gauge goes up a bit. Fill it and you’re sent to fever mode, where your screen is suddenly filled with a stack of puyos; a giant chain reaction waiting to be set off. With one or two well-placed puyos you can flood your opponent. But, if you miss your opportunity, you’ll be left with a big mess.

Fever has a nice look to it, with odd but interestingly designed characters and distinctive looking puyos that not only differ in color but in shape and even expression. Both screens are filled with puyo pits when you have eight players going at it, but when you’re playing against the computer, the game only uses the upper screen, disappointingly saving the bottom for the antics of your selected characters. You can use the stylus to play, which actually works surprisingly well, but it's too slow for use in the later levels of this surprisingly challenging game.

This Puzzler Pops

This is undoubtedly the best Puyo title yet, giving you both old-school gameplay and new, along with well-rounded multiplayer and challenging difficulty. It’s not a puzzler for everyone, as its simplicity hides a surprising amount of complexity, but it definitely stands as one of the best puzzlers to hit the DS.