A playthrough of Sega's 2004 puzzle game for the Nintendo GameCube, Puyo Pop Fever. This video shows the entire story mode on the normal difficulty: 0:40 RunRun Course begins 8:00 WakuWaku Course begins 27:06 HaraHara Course begins Puyo Pop Fever (Or Puyo Puyo Fever, as the game was called in Japan) was second game in the series developed by Sonic Team, preceeded only by Puyo Pop (Minna de Puyo Puyo) on the Game Boy Advance back in 2002. It was originally released as an arcade title for Sega's Naomi hardware, and its 2004 port to the Dreamcast was the final title that Sonic Team worked on for the Dreamcast. It was released on countless other platforms, as well, including the PS2, Xbox, PC, DS, and Game Boy Advance. The game is fairly similar to the Puyo games developed by Compile themselves. It's still a "battle puzzle" game. You arrange colored blobs into groups of four or more to make them disappear, and each combination sends "nuisance" Puyo to the other player's board. Ideally, you want to drop the Puyos in such a way that you can set off a chain reaction - the more moves that you can chain together and set off in a single move, the more stuff gets flung at your opponent. The big difference in Puyo Pop Fever, as you can probably tell from the title, is the introduction of the Fever mode. If nuisance Puyo are about to drop onto your side of the field (indicated by the grey blob icons at the top of the board), you can make any combination to cancel some of these out: this is what the game, somewhat unclearly, refers to as "offsetting." Each time you successfully offset part of an incoming attack, you'll fill in one of the circles on the side of your game board. If you fill all of the circles, you enter Fever mode. Fever mode gives you huge preset arrangements that can usually be cleared in one or two moves - if clear several of these in succession, your opponent is going to have a hard time coming back from the onslaught sent their way. The Fever mechanic changes the dynamic of the game quite a bit, as it allows you to turn the tables at any moment. It also rewards slower, more methodical play. If you're constantly sending over tiny combinations, the opponent will counter them all easily and hit Fever mode without much problem. The strategy, especially in the more challenging battles, then becomes one of balancing massive combos with the opportunities you're providing. Each of the CPU opponents have different strategies, so you have to be extremely careful with how you approach each. Make no mistake - as easy as the game goes on you in the lower stages, it is a Puyo Puyo game, and as such, it is bloodthirsty. The difficulty level eventually ends up approaching controller-breaking levels near the end - even on the normal difficulty level! But still, if you know and love Puyo games, you're already familiar with this. Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine was a good warm-up, but without some mean Puyo chops, you won't see the ending here. Even if you aren't very good at it, though, Puyo Pop Fever is an extremely fun multiplayer game. The presentation is probably going to be hit-or-miss depending on your preferences. Personally, I thought the new hyper-cheery anime cutscenes were ugly and the voice acting irritated me to no end, but they are well produced and the new characters are usually pretty funny. In game, it looks really nice. The boards are all done in 3D and feature a few flashy effects when you pull off a big move, and the pieces always stand out, even when everything behind them dissolves into sheer chaos. The music is alright - I didn't like the intro theme at all, but that tune that plays during the first few stages of each course is a true ear worm. It's cheery, almost to a fault, and it's absurdly catchy. Overall, if a video game could be a Fanta soda with Pixy Stix, unicorns, and ADHD mixed in, Puyo Pop Fever would be that game. It's obnoxious, but it does its best to be endearing. Whether or not it succeeded is completely a matter of personal opinion. Sega did a fantastic job with Puyo Pop Fever - much better than their first shot at the series on the GBA, for sure. And whether or not you appreciate the Anime-on-crack aesthetic, there is more than enough hardcore puzzle gaming here to keep any genre fiend addicted for quite awhile. _ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (
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