Thank you, SEGA for sending us this game to review!

SEGA AGES Puyo Puyo 2 is a remake of the original Puyo Puyo 2, except this time some new tweaks were added, a couple of things have changed, and the game is available on the Nintendo Switch without players needing to insert a coin to play. Many aspects of the title do remain the same, however, like how difficult it gets to be, as the difficulty becomes more prominent as the player achieves higher level opponents.

In this game, there are two main single-player modes: Arcade mode and Endurance mode (along with single, double, and endless Puyo Puyo, which are other modifications that adjust the way the Puyos work). The difference is that in Endurance mode, the player can only advance to the next level – as there are six levels before the final boss – once he or she plays and wins against every opponent in that level category. In Arcade mode, only one enemy from each level needs to lose to the player in order for him or her to move on, with the exception of the first level, where two of the opponents must be defeated.

A round of Puyo Puyo goes like this: Once the enemy the player will be versing against is chosen, some speech from the enemy is shown before the round begins (the text is in Japanese), and then it starts off. The first link of two “Puyos” (they look like little slime balls with eyes) begins to fall from the top of the screen, coming from the slot three from the left, of which there are six. There are five different colors that the individual Puyos can be, and the link can be a combination of any two colors, and it is possible for there to be two of the same color Puyo in the same link. In fact, that happens quite often and I found that occurrence to be very useful for my strategy. The colors available are blue, green, purple, red, and yellow.

The goal with these Puyos is to place those of the same color directly next to each other so that they can join together into one yellow, red, purple, green, or blue blob, depending on the color that is being focused on. Once the player uses the Puyo links falling from the top of the screen to form a blob of four Puyos of the same color, it will disappear, allowing the Puyos on top of it to fall into place and possibly form more blobs, creating combos. This is where Garbage Puyos come in.

When either player makes a Puyo combo of one or more, Garbage Puyos flood their opponent’s working space. These blackish-gray Puyos can’t form blobs or link together. All their purpose is to crowd up their screen until no more Puyo combos can be made and therefore making the player lose the game (which results in the “Game Over” screen fading in, and at that point, the player has ten seconds to decide whether to give up and start over or to continue). They may end up stacking the future Puyos the rest of the way to the top of the screen. The amount of GarbagePuyos that enter at once depends on how many combos their enemy has made at once, but they can be removed. If the player makes a link of at least four Puyos of the same color, the Garbage Puyos around it will disappear. Unless they are block Garbage Puyos, which are even more annoying. For these, two combos will need to be made around these. The first to thaw it out from the block or ice, and the second to actually get rid of the Garbage Puyos that was inside.

The graphics of this game are very colorful, and descriptive to an extent. However, as this is a remake of a game that was not made very recently at all(decades ago), so the developers appeared to have imitated that style in this title. Since they succeeded, the area in which the player would play the game has a vivid yet pixelated effect. The main menu, however, is crisp and clear as a modern video game would be.

The sound in this game matches the style of the graphics: Very fast-paced and interesting, and also very 16-bit sounding, which compliments the style of the graphics being portrayed during a round.

Moral warnings in this game are not significant. A few of the enemies that the player could choose to face show minimal cleavage. Other than that, though, nothing about this game needs recognition. I would recommend this title to anyone looking for a nice throwback arcade game.