Game:

Puyo Pop Fever (2003)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 7:30

691 views

5

Well, I've been trying to stay sane again, but there's really no time for extended sessions of gaming again...which is really just maddening to think about, much less experience day-in and day-out...so I've got to get my fix somehow here and there.

I seem to have caught the Fever, but you can blame the Overhazard for being so contagious in that respect. I've found a GameStop location nearby where I can snag a copy of the GameCube game, but in the meantime I've explored the PC version a bit.

This version was actually only released in Japan, officially, and Sega has long since discontinued the official online servers, but it actually already had a fairly functional English translation, including both text and voice clips...with just a few quirks here and there.

Anyway, in the process of trying to fight and unlock Carbuncle, I had to play against the computer on the HaraHara Course, trying to trigger Fever mode either as much or as little as possible, and since I basically can't help that I pretty much NEED Fever mode to tackle the harder opponents, I guess that settles that.

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Disclaimer, I'm really not very good...what you see here are by all means the very *best* performances I can muster at present, and you can see here that I'm playing on Easy mode, so basically I start with three ticks on my Fever gauge always filled, among other little boosts here or there. It's been years since I even touched a Puyo-related game...Kirby's Avalanche, it was, actually...I must have been in elementary school, too.

This does NOT mean that the AI will go any easier on me...a sort of contractual failure on the part of the AI to comply with the difficulty rating I chose...but I guess I can deal with that. It's at least partly my fault in this first match that it came to such crazy dire straits, anyway...because trying to go into Fever too much, but also trying NOT to completely destroy your opponent is a good way to get all that havoc slingshotted right back in your face.

So particularly during my first Fever, I had to make a conscious effort to make sure I didn't throw a bunch of stuff to my opponent...it does me no good if I bury him too quickly, and likewise it does me no good if I end up "motivating" him to enter Fever of his own too soon.

A couple of neat things happen in the first match, naturally...but it's a whopping five minutes long and some change left over...and we even hit the cap for displayable Nuisance Puyo to be dropped, although you'll also be able to see that it DOES keep track of the excess...it just spares you the notice of exactly how much overkill there is waiting in the wings.

Carbuncle is also no cakewalk, no matter what difficulty you're playing on, because the AI is probably the single strongest in the game, since it's dictated by the script per character, rather than by any setting you get to choose. Carbuncle, Popoi, Ms. Accord, and Arle are always really tough customers...particularly given my own relative inexperience.

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If you want even more details about this game than I can give out, you'd better mosey on over to the Overhazard's coverage which initially got me interested in this game again. I love action-puzzle games like these, even the ones I'm not as good at as others...it always feels like an interesting case of room for personal improvement, somehow.

About the only other things I might use this PC version for is playing online, since you can tunnel a direct connection through Hamachi or with plain old IP addresses...although I honestly wouldn't recommend the latter. Of course, I have no idea how much use I'd get out of it, it's just a neat thing that CAN be done.

The one thing above all others that bugs me is that the song files used by the PC version don't loop cleanly at all...in fact, they have a fade to silence after about a minute or two. Such a shame.