Trivia / Puyo Puyo

• Actor Allusion: For Arle, they have Kotono Mitsuishi say "oshioki yo". She even does a Puyo-flavored, Sailor Moon-esque In the Name of the Moon in Bayoe~n!! The Mega Tracks of Puyo CD.
• Bad Export for You: The iOS Sega Columns Deluxe is a port of the Japanese Puyo Puyo~n & Columns phone game, except with the characters removed.
• Cash-Cow Franchise:
  • Puyo Puyo was a household name in mid-90s Japan, thanks to the success of the first two arcade games and subsequent merchandise. This made Compile's spectacular collapse all the more jarring.
  • Sega initially seemed content to release low-budget, moderate-return games every few years. Then along came Puyo Puyo!! Quest, which was a huge success and is currently one of the flagship titles for Sega's mobile division. To wit, Quest is SEGA's 3rd highest grossing digital title◊, beaten by only fellow mobile title Hortensia Saga and hit MMORPG Phantasy Star Online 2.
• Casting Gag:
  • Despite the constant shifting of voice actors (see The Other Darrin below) the late Yuko Mizutani, who voiced Draco Centauros (among many other characters) in the PC-Engine Puyo Puyo games, returned to voice Witch in Puyo Puyo~n.
  • Likewise, Kazuki Yao, who voiced Dark Prince in the PC-Engine Puyo Puyo games, returned to the series in Puyo Puyo Tetris to voice Ex.
  • There's also Kenichi Ono who voiced Dark Prince in Puyo Puyo~n, and later returned to the series exactly a decade after Yo~n's release to voice Risukuma for every game following the latter character's introduction to the series in Puyo Puyo 7.
  • In the PC-Engine Puyo Puyo games, Arle is voiced by Kotono Mitsuishi, who, almost 25 years later than the release of Puyo Puyo CD, returns to the series voicing Sailor Moon in a crossover event in Puyo Puyo Quest.
• Channel Hop: Was originally a Compile property before they transferred the rights to Sega.
• Content Leak: In December 2023, Sega's English X (Formerly Twitter) account suddenly posted advertisements for Quest, which surprised everyone even if it never resulted in Quest becoming officially localized. What did come to a shock was that two of the app icons showed were all new-models for Arle and Amitie, bringing massive amounts of confusion and speculation as to what it could mean. Three months later, it would be revealed that those models would be used for an all new game called Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop for Apple Arcade.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Carbuncle (except in the Saturn port of Tsu), Ragnus, Donguri Gaeru, Klug, Ocean Prince, Sig, Rei, Onion Pixie, and CD Tsu's Nohoho and Baromett. Ocean Prince has this in two fronts with the English dub of Puyo Puyo Tetris.
• Died During Production: Tamaki Nakanishi died on March 14, 2020. Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 was announced around five months later, recasting Carbuncle and Yu & Rei with Tomoko Kaneda and Miki Hisuda, respectively.
• Dueling Works:
  • Puyo Puyo~n and Magical Drop F. Both were the 4th mainline entries in their respective series, released in 1999 (Yo~n preceding MDF by roughly 7 months), skipped arcades, featured an Art Shift, and experimented with Limit Breaks. Yo~n "won," but it was nowhere near enough to save Compile's business, and Compile-era Puyo ultimately outlasted the Magical Drop series by just a bit more than a year.
  • Soldam, which released in 1992 (some sites put it at September), might also qualify as a direct competitor to the first arcade game. Like Puyo Puyo, it is a puzzle game whose aesthetics are heavily based on a previous game by its respective developer. There's no question as to who won this contest and, what's more, the Nintendo Switch reboot of Soldam features an art style◊ heavily "inspired" by the post-20th Puyo Puyo artstyle.
  • For a same-company example, there's Minna de Puyo Puyo vs Columns Crown, two Game Boy Advance puzzle games released within very close proximity of each other; in particular, the games' North American releases were separated by a single week. Minna won, solidifying Puyo Puyo as Sega's premier puzzle series while all but ending Columns beyond the occasional re-release.
• Dummied Out:
  • Almost all of the SNES and Mega Drive Puyo Puyo games (Mean Bean Machine and Kirby's Avalanche included) have menus that are normally inaccessible to players.
  • The Mega Drive version of Tsu has several unused voice clips, including alternate spells for Arle and catchphrases/lose quotes for a few enemies. Some would be used in later ports.
  • The GBA Puyo Pop almost exclusively recycles voice clips from Sun, so it shouldn't be much of surprise that Sun's Title Scream is buried within the game's audio data.
  • Schezo has one unused expression for 20th Anniversary shown here.◊
• Fandom Life Cycle: Sits comfortably at Stage 3, in part of the Puyo Tetris games and Champions giving it an overseas foundation. There's a couple of dedicated circles that attempt to push towards Stage 4 by way of tournaments, but it struggles to get mainstream attention outside of Japan (solid Stage 4).
• Fan Translation: Fan efforts to translate the many non-exported games include:
  • From the Compile-era games, the Famicom and MSX Puyo Puyo, Super Puyo Puyo Tsu, the PC and Nintendo 64 versions of Puyo Puyo Sun, the Dreamcast version of Puyo Puyo~n, and Super Nazo Puyo: Rulue no Roux got translations from multiple different teams. Tsu, while technically incomplete due to some untranslated graphics, is still fully playable. There's also a partial translation for Nazo Puyo: Arle no Roux.
  • For the Sega-era games, the DS versions of Puyo Puyo 15th Anniversary, Puyo Puyo 7, and Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary, and Puyo Puyo Chronicle. 20th Anniversary is notable in that the original effort was halted following a server crash and required a new team to complete it, and that both it and the translation of Madou Monogatari II were coincidentally released within mere hours of each other. Puyo Puyo 7 would see a revised translation in 2021 for the Wii version. A partial translation of Fever 2 was released after years of Development Hell made it apparent that it would never be completely finished.
  • A couple of the smaller Disc Station games also saw fan translations. Namely, Comet Summoner and Puyo Card, for having minimal text to translate.
  • Arle no Bouken was translated under the title "Arle's Adventure: Magical Jewels" in a nearly 15-year effort. This game is particularly notable in that there were actually several attempts to translate it during the dying days of the Mon fad that failed because, to quote the programmer who eventually succeeded, the game is "coded as if someone wanted to make this a nightmare to be translated by fans". For perspective, it was the sixth separate team and seventh release overall that produced a fully-functional translation, twenty years after the game's release.
• Follow the Leader:
  • Puyo Puyo was Compile's answer to Tetris and Dr. Mario. The first two arcade games' successes saw dozens of competition-focused puzzle games featuring wacky casts of characters hit the market. Hebereke's Popoon and Konami's Taisen Puzzle Dama are particularly blatant from a gameplay standpoint (the main differences being that they are Match Three instead of Match Four). As mentioned above, Magical Drop F takes a lot from Puyo Puyo~n despite Magical Drop having fundamentally-different gameplay.
  • Much of Compile's 1999-2000 output was them desperately trying to apply Arle and friends to popular gaming trends, from Pokémon to DanceDanceRevolution to Super Robot Wars. They were going to try to imitate Puyo itself with Pochi & Nyaa after they lost the series, but went out of business before the game released.
  • Puyo Puyo!! Quest is a thinly-veiled take on Puzzle & Dragons. You collect cards, form teams, even go through the same Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors motions as the latter game.
• Fountain of Expies: Arle would be the basis of not only other protagonists in the Puyo Puyo series, but other Falling Blocks/Puzzle Game titles. Several characteristics she has would be retooled for future characters like Amitie, Ringo, and Ally, while outside of Puyo Puyo puzzle games (or games that borrow puzzle game elements) like Panel de Pon, Twinkle Star Sprites, Baku Baku Animal, and Star Sweep would have similar Badass Adorable female leads.
• Franchise Ownership Acquisition: Puyo Puyo was originally a property of Compile, but Sega bought the rights to it in 1998. Compile was still able to work on Puyo Puyo games until 2001, when it became unable to sustain itself and collapsed, with Puyo Pop (2001) being the first game made by Sega.
• He Also Did:
  • The Dark Prince's English voice actor, Xander Mobus, also voiced The Conductor, an Ensemble Dark Horse of A Hat in Time. He is also the current voice of Master Hand, Crazy Hand, Master Core, and the announcer in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series as of the franchise's fourth installment.
  • Ben Lepley, Schezo's English voice actor, is one of the creators behind Ginger Orphan Playhouse.
  • An in-series example: Kazuki Yao, nowadays known by Puyo Puyo fans as the Japanese voice for Ex, also voiced Dark Prince, decades earlier, in Puyo Puyo CD.
• Invisible Advertising:
  • If there was ever an English-language Puyo Puyo ad prior to Puyo Tetris, the fandom sure hasn't found it.
  • Hilariously, SEGA themselves have largely not advertised Puyo Tetris, preferring to basically let the game advertise itself, to stunningly huge success!
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • SEGA only seems interested in releasing the Compile-era Puyo Puyo games that they themselves published. This especially hurts in the case of Tsu, where each version after the Mega Drive port adds new features. Interestingly in 2019, this became averted, as the Super Famicom version of Puyo Puyo Tsu became available in all regions as part of the Nintendo Online SNES service on Nintendo Switch, marking the first time that specific version got a re-release in more than 2 decades.
  • However, there is another issue with the rest of the series. Basically, if it's not the original, any of its Dolled Up Installments, or Tsu, chances are those entries will never see the light of day on any modern system. Sun just barely escapes this with VS Puyo Puyo Sun on the Genesis Mini 2 (even if it was just the multiplayer mode ported over), but everything from Yo~n to Chronicles are hard locked to the systems they were developed for. Fever is especially bad since that game was developed internally by Sonic Team and already has full international language support, meaning theoretically, there should be no reason why it wouldn't get remastered in any capacity.
  • Don't have an N-Gage or later Symbian OS phone? Tough luck trying to play the N-Gage Puyo Pop. Even worse than the English arcade game because, as of this writing, there isn't a single N-Gage emulator that plays non-Java based games. Puyo Pop wasn't made with Java.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The DS version of 20th Anniversary has a limited edition "Anniversary Box" version, which packs in a hand fan and a set of keychains of the Puyo cast, the Puyo themselves, and the 20th Anniversary label. The 3DS version, on the other hand, has a set of 41 metal pins.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.":
  • Anything and everything that debuted in the Madou Monogatari series is this whenever it shows up in a localized Puyo Puyo game.
  • Ringo, Risukuma, Maguro, Sig, and Paprisu made their western debut in the Sonic Runners x Puyo Puyo Quest collab.
  • Puyo Puyo Tetris marks the first appearance of Lemres, Feli, Ecolo, Rei, and Oniko in the West.
  • Champions marks the Western debut of Ally, Rafisol, and any characters who first appeared in Quest.
  • Puyo Tetris 2's Skill Battle mode is marketed as "new" despite debuting in the Japan-only 3DS game Puyo Puyo Chronicle.
  • To put things in perspective, the only characters who both appear in a localized game and avert this trope are the characters who debuted in Puyo Pop Fever (14) or either of the Puyo Puyo Tetris (10) games.
• Milestone Celebration: Three of them; special games were made for their 15th, 20th and 25th anniversary. Unfortunately, to date, NONE have been released in the West. Seemingly averted with the 30th anniversary, with Puyo Puyo!! Quest getting an overhaul instead.
• Newbie Boom: Sega has pulled this off at least three times:
  • The first Fever reinvigorated the series in Japan.
  • Puyo Puyo Quest was not only a hit in Japan, but it also unexpectedly attracted a number of international fans with its cute character designs.
  • By far the most notable example is Puyo Puyo Tetris, benefiting from the perfect storm of internet buzz, the critically-panned Tetris Ultimate, and a young Nintendo Switch. It was a breakout hit, creating countless new Puyo fans while kickstarting Fan Translation efforts for the other Puyo Puyo and Madou Monogatari games.
• No Dub for You: Puyo Puyo Tsu has recieved a good amount of re-releases in english-speaking countries - the Virtual Console release of the Genesis game, the appearance in the Sega 3D Classics Collection, the SEGA Ages release, and the SNES port showing up on Nintendo Switch Online. Despite that, none of those releases translate any of the in-game text, though the SEGA Ages and 3D Classics versions at least have english menus.
• No Export for You:
  • It's easier to list the Puyo Puyo games that were localized, especially prior to 2016's Sega 3D Classics Collection which marked the beginning of Sega's efforts to localize the games on a more consistent basis. The only games that were localized between 1991 and 2016 were the first arcade game, Dolled Up Installments, the Neo Geo Pocket Color and untranslated Mega Drive (via Wii Virtual Console) ports of Tsu, Puyo Pop on the GBA (Minna de Puyo Puyo), and Puyo Pop Fever (with North America only getting two versions of Fever out of the eight or so). Puzlow Kids is a particularly painful example, as the cartridge was already bilingual.
  • Even after 2016, western countries only received two ports of Puyo Puyo Tetris, missed the standalone release of 3D Puyo Puyo 2, and completely missed Puyo Puyo Chronicle.
  • Inverted with the N-Gage Puyo Pop, which was released everywhere except Japan.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Japanese: Happened quite often during Compile's run. The earliest entries had Compile staff and employees of the RCC Broadcasting company provide voices, NEC commissioned professional voice actors for the PC-Engine games, and a mostly different set of professionals were used in Yo~n. And that's before getting to the characters that changed actors between individual ports. Occurrences of this happening during Sega's run were quite few, with Carbuncle and Yu & Rei being necessitated examples due to the passing of Tamaki Nakanishi. Tomoko Kaneda would take up Carbuncle's role, while Miki Hasuda would take up Yu & Rei.
  • English: English dubs would see a casting change in every game due to the sporadic releases. None of the voice actors in the English Arcade Puyo Puyo made a reappearance for Fever, not even Arle's (er, Silvana). None of the actors in Fever returned to reprise their roles either, though considering the huge gap in releases, it was rather inevitable, as that cast either moved on to other roles or were never heard from again. In fact, Champions is the first game to avert this trope.
• Port Overdosed: If a game in the series happens to be a major success, expect it to be ported to pretty much every modern platform for its time (and then some!).
• Pre-Order Bonus:
  • Anyone that preordered 20th Anniversary was given "Puyo Puyo!! Anniversary Soundtrack Collection", a collection of the game's songs throughout the entire series, as a bonus.
  • For Puyo Tetris, a code that grants "Arle ver. Puyo Tetris" for Puyo Quest was included with the game. What is the code printed on? A physical Puyo Quest-styled card that's the size of a common TCG card, which can slip into a card binder or sleeve for safekeeping. The PS4 and Xbox One versions did the same thing, containing "Ringo ver. Puyo Tetris" instead.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • S2PID, one of the leading Puyo players in the US and major contributor of the Puyo Nexus wiki, was hired by Sega to create a series of tutorials for the English release of Puyo Puyo Tetris.
  • For the European playerbase, BlueHairKei, a former tournament player and chairman of Puyo GB, contributed three tutorial videos for Sega Europe's channel using Puyo Puyo Champions.
  • Erica Mendez, Arle's voice actress in Puyo Tetris, stated that she is a Kirby's Avalanche fan.
  • As for Arle's Japanese voice, Mie Sonozaki is a self reported fan of Madou Monogatari 2, specifically the beta version that was released in Compile's Discstation magazine. This was the first game Arle ever appeared in and stars her as the protagonist.
  • In a Nintendo Life interview, Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris, stated that he loved Puyo Puyo.
• Prop Recycling:
  • Puyo Puyo CD Tsu features the pre-battle cutscenes from the Saturn and Super Famicom ports as an unlockable...except that they all take place in the "meadow" featured in the first game.
  • Puyo Puyo eSports reuses the graphical style of Puyo Tetris and uses the character art from Puyo Quest. The series regulars use the exact same pose of their 7* art, but those with altered appearances had them redrawn to their 20th appearance.
  • Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop reuses the models and animations from Chronicle, retextured and reshaded with a toon shader to give the models a brighter palette.
• Real-Life Relative: Kikuko Inoue voiced Will 'o Wisp and one-third of the Banshee Trio in Puyo Puyo CD Tsu. Her daughter Honoka Inoue - who wasn't born until roughly two years after CD Tsu's release - is the current voice of Ally. We did mention that Puyo Puyo is a Video Game Long Runner, right?
• Reality Subtext: Puyo Puyo Box was blatantly designed as a send-off to the series, with Compile jamming in as much from the four mainline games as they could. Given that Compile still had time on their deal with Sega, either they flat-out couldn't make another Puyo Puyo game, or they realized that Puyo Puyo wasn't going to save them.
• Schedule Slip: Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon was slated to release in late 1997, but ended up getting delayed to spring 1998. What makes this delay so significant is that it allegedly played a role in forcing Compile to restructure.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: There hasn't been a Madou Monogatari game using the original cast of characters since 2000. SEGA currently owns the rights to Puyo Puyo, as well as the rights to the characters from it, since many of said characters are also in Puyo games. However, D4 Enterprise own the rights to the Madou Monogatari name and world, and... basically nothing in said world, leaving them unable to make any new Madou games that have anything to do with the series as it was pre-rights issues beyond the title and genre. It's speculated this is also why SEGA haven't returned to the original Madou Monogatari world and always have the characters appear out of nowhere needing to be returned to where they came from. The announcement of Compile Heart's Madou Monogatari 4 is set to overturn this trend, however, as they have seemingly confirmed that they have received SEGA's blessing to use the original characters.
• Sequel Gap:
  • If we're talking strictly localizations, then not counting the two rereleases of Puyo Puyo Tsu on the Virtual Console and 3DS, or Cranky Food Friends, it's a 13 year gap between Puyo Pop Fever (2004) and Puyo Puyo Tetris (2017).
  • 6 years between Puyo Tetris and Puyo Tetris 2...in Japan. In the West, the gap is much shorter (3 years) due to the problems with the Tetris license delaying its localization.
• Sleeper Hit: By most accounts, Puyo Puyo Tetris is this. Given past localization efforts didn't sell well, many fans hoped, but didn't expect the game to do well, but it was one of the top selling games early in the Nintendo Switch's lifespan.
• Voiced Differently in the Dub:
  • Sig and Klug in the Japanese games have high-pitched young boy voices. This extends to the Japanese version of Puyo Puyo Tetris, but not the English dub which makes both characters' voices much, much deeper.
  • Schezo is subject to his, but is a bit more subdued in comparison. In Japanese, he sounds like an older teen, especially when taking account the Compile games. In English, he sounds more like an adult man.
  • Arle is also a victim of having a deeper voice in a localization, but not in Puyo Puyo Tetris- rather in Puyo Puyo 1 and Puyo Pop Fever, where in both games her Japanese voice was much more higher pitched, and her English voice was so deep it didn't fit a 16-year-old girl in any capacity. Puyo Tetris was the first time she was dubbed with something akin to her high-pitched, energetic current Japanese voice.
• What Could Have Been: Has its own page here.
• Word of Dante:
  • A popular origin story for Doppelganger Arle, in which she is the "true" Arle who lost half of her soul between the Madou Monogatari and Puyo Puyo universes, is Wrongfully Attributed to the already dubiously-canon Shin Madou Monogatari. Per this site (and the original blog post via Internet Archive by former Compile developer "Inaken", all but confirmed to be Kenichi Ina), the idea was actually an unused plot thread that would've been used to make Pocket Puyo Puyo~n compliant to the Madou Monogatari Chronology. Like Arle no Bouken's alleged Sequel Hooks, covered in the same blog post, there's no sign of the story in the final game. Despite this, the plot is still (considered) canon by a number of international fans.
  • In a straighter example, Inaken states that they think of Box's Scramble Mode as a way of resolving a Time Crash that resulted from Dark Prince ending the time loop established in the Chronology, but admits that they had nothing to do with that game.

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