Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary

Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary
File:Puyo Puyo 15th Anniversary.jpg
Developer(s)	Sonic Team
Publisher(s)	Sega
Director(s)	Mizuki Hosoyamada
Producer(s)	Akinori Nishiyama
Composer(s)	Hideki Abe
Series	Puyo Puyo
Platforms	Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Wii
Release date(s)	Nintendo DS PlayStation Portable PlayStation 2 Wii
Genre(s)	Puzzle game
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer, online multiplayer

Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary (ぷよぷよ!, Puyopuyo!) is a sub-story of the Puyo Puyo series, developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Wii. As with many other games in the series, it has not been released outside of Japan for any consoles. This is the first Puyo Puyo game to be released on the Wii console. The game was endorsed by Yuri Ebihara.

Plot

Ms. Accord, the teacher at the Primp Magic School, informs Sig that there will be a tournament up for play, and everyone's competing; the reward is a medal that will grant anyone's single wish. Another scene shows Amitie and Arle pledging to play by the rules, and Sig, still as clueless as ever, eventually plegdes as well, but not before witnessing six comets fall down onto Earth. Sig, realising that this is a big discovery, decides to ignore it anyhow and goes onto the competition. It turns out that the "comets" are actually six familiar characters from the Madou series, who serve as boss characters in the story modes.

Characters

As Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary was created to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of Puyo Puyo, it includes most of the Fever characters plus six of the characters from the Madou series; they are said to have fell from the sky into Primp Town, the primary setting of the Fever series games. There are a total of twenty-two characters in this game.

Gameplay

15th Anniversary has a slew of new modes, and also includes modes that emulate the original Puyo Puyo, Puyo Puyo Tsu and Puyo Pop Fever.

Puyo Puyo

This mode emulates quite accurately the gameplay of original Puyo Puyo.

Puyo Puyo 2

This mode emulates the gameplay of Puyo Puyo Tsu.

Puyo Puyo Fever

This is Fever mode, similar to gameplay of Puyo Pop Fever and Puyo Puyo Fever 2, but with some small updates. The Fever counter is more rigid and actually represents the time you have - as soon as it reaches 0, the time is up and it can not be lifted by the end of a chain. In addition, Fever points are now earned not when the opponent offsets but instead when you make a chain that does not offset.

Big Puyo

In this mode, Puyo are twice as large in both directions and the board itself is only 3 by 6 Puyo, a quarter of the normal board size. Less garbage is sent to opponents in this mode. Your goal is simply to defeat the opponents.

Bomber

In this mode, instead of sending nuisance Puyo, you send bomb blocks, which explode after the user with them makes a certain amount of moves and change all surrounding Puyo into Hard Puyo.

Endless Fever

In this mode, you start off with a Fever that does not end and a large number of pending nuisance Puyo. They can't fall, however, so they are only there to be offset until one player finishes offsetting and overflows into the Fever trash galley of the opponents.

Excavation

In this mode, you start with a half-filled regular board. Hidden on the bottom row is a star, that, when popped, will send infinite garbage to all other opponents. Your goal is, obviously, to get this Puyo and defeat the opponents. Of interest is the fact that once one player has popped the star, offsetting is no longer allowed, so if both players happen to get it at the same time, the first to drop their next Puyo pair will lose.

Spinner

In this mode, your board will rotate every 15 seconds. The counter acts similar to the Fever counter - when time is up, it waits for you to drop your last Puyo. When all players are idle and the time is up, the boards spin 180 degrees and then gravity acts on the Puyos. A special bonus is given to chains that continue after or are started from the spin.

Ice Blocks

In this mode, instead of sending nuisance Puyos, you send frozen Puyo blocks, which become unfrozen after the player who has them makes 3 moves. Because of the nature of sending the other player Puyo blocks that have the ability to chain, this mode can turn around if the chain created by the original sender is not large enough to defeat the opponents.

Mission

In mission mode, you are given a task which you must complete before your opponents. You simply complete 3 tasks before the opponents can to win the game.

Searchlight

In this mode, your Puyo board is only partially visible on the screen at any time (except during Fevers). The visibility range is a cone, originating from the top of the screen and expanding downward, which is in a constant sway, lampooning a searchlight. This mode is difficult because it disorients proper placement of Puyos, or causes the player to have to slow down and wait for the searchlight to pass an area unknown to them in order to make proper chains.

Underwater

Water mode is a slow moving mode where you place Puyos into a body of water filled up to two Puyo. Puyo float in the water, making the mode in essence the same as placing Puyo at the bottom of a Puyo board. Because of the nature of this mode, Nuisance only fall in groups of 1 line. This prevents nuisance Puyo from causing chains due to unequal descent of columns.

DS Version Multiplayer

The DS version of 15th Anniversary supports all multiplayer modes that the DS officially supports.

Everybody Puyo Puyo

In this mode, players without a copy of 15th Anniversary can play along with those that do. The only difference between playing with a copy and without a copy is that the download and play version does not contain voices or battle animations. The game is functionally compatible, for the most part. Therefore, both the DS Download and Play modes and direct connection modes are accessible from here.

Up to 8 players can play and in any mode that the amount of players permits. However, for technical reasons (such as alternative drawing methods being used in 8-player mode to keep the game from lagging), you can only play Puyo Puyo, Puyo Puyo TSU, and Puyo Puyo Fever modes in games with more than four players.

WiFi

In this mode, you can use Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to verse players across the internet. WiFi mode supports only 3 modes (Puyo Puyo, Puyo Puyo 2, and Puyo Puyo Fever). You can play games of between two and four players, either with your friends using the Friend Code system or against random opponents. When playing random games, three-player mode and the original Puyo Puyo rules are not available, and you can earn (or lose!) points if playing a two-player game.

Issues

Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary for the DS had several issues.

Saving

In the original release of Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary, a bug existed where data would could not be saved more than 255 times. A new version, nicknamed 1.1, was released to solve the problem on January 20, 2007. Information on how to find out the game version and instructions on how to get replacement can be found on Sega's website.

WiFi

In both of these versions existed yet another bug, this one effecting WiFi. When a player disconnected, both lost points. Recently, a new version was released to solve this problem.

Fever meter bug

While playing multiplayer games, the fever meter will occasionally freeze on 7 points without letting you into fever mode. It will subsequently let you in after your next move, but this may be deadly depending on the circumstances. This bug can also be seen in version 2.00 of the PC version of Puyo Pop Fever.

Trivia

• A new garbage symbol was added (comet/1440 garbage). This symbol became staple in future Puyo Puyo games.

External links

• Official website (Japanese)
• GameFAQs page
• IGN page
• GameSpot page