The game that made Puyo Puyo into a Cash-Cow Franchise.
Puyo Puyo 2 (or Puyo Puyo Tsu in Japannote ), is the 1994 sequel to Puyo Puyo (1992) and second arcade entry in the Puyo Puyo series.Developed for the same Sega System C-2 arcade hardware that powered its predecessor, 2 doesn't change much on the gameplay front: clearing Puyos now reduces the amount of garbage waiting above the player's tray, some control issues are ironed out, the player gets a bonus for completely clearing their field, and the single-player goes from a linear gauntlet to a more open-ended challenge where players choose opponents via roulette as they climb the Dark Prince's tower. As it turns out, that was all the game needed to become a breakout hit. There are few puzzle games as influential as Puyo Puyo 2, its success having kickstarted an entire Sub-Genre of puzzle games with wacky casts of characters and an emphasis on competitive gameplay.
Puyo Puyo 2 has seen a wide variety of ports, many of them adding new features. For example, the arcade version of 2 decided to forgo the character banter from the 1992 game, but the skits were added to the Sega Saturn, Super Famicom (where it was ported twice), PC Engine CD, and PlayStation versions. While most versions of the game were never released internationally, there are a few ports that released outside of Japan; the most notable of those ports are the NGPC version (localized by SNK as Puyo Pop), the arcade version in the 3DS's Sega 3D Classics Collection and Nintendo Switch's Sega Ages Puyo Puyo 2, and the first Super Famicom port for Nintendo Switch Online's SNES service.
Tropes present in Puyo Puyo 2:
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Quick Turn (alternatively known as Double Rotation) modifies the rotation mechanics so that pressing a rotation button twice will trigger a 180-degree flip if the currently-controlled pair of Puyos is stuck in a single column.
- Like Puyo Puyo (1992), the original arcade version reduces the difficulty upon continuing.
- Floor EXP is retained when using a continue.
- Sega Ages Puyo Puyo 2 for the Nintendo Switch includes a menu with everyone's pre-battle descriptions as a way to provide this information in multiple languages without having to patch a translation into the game itself. Since Japanese fans can obviously read the descriptions in their original form, the menu is instead billed as a way to view the harder-to-encounter opponents like Dragon and Owlbear.
- Arcade-Perfect Port: Like the 1992 Puyo Puyo, the similarities between the Mega Drive and System C-2 mean that the Mega Drive port of 2 is arcade perfect in every way except with regards to voice acting. Unlike the previous game, Compile was able to get all of the voice work on the cart, but there is still a compromise involved: players are given the choice between recognizable (but lower than arcade-quality) voice samples that temporarily pause the BGM (as the first Puyo Puyo and Madou Monogatari I both do) and the Mega Drive standard of highly-garbled voice samples that don't require the music to be paused.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: The NGPC Puyo Pop had maybe six or seven lines that needed to be translated into English. Every single one of them has grammar issues. Not to mention that the back of the European box advertises enemies named "Walleye" and "Happy." This version was translated and released internationally by SNK, who had a reputation for questionable translations at the time.
- Brick Joke: In Puyo Puyo (1992), during the cutscene before fighting Satan (Dark Prince), Arle accidentally calls him "Santa". In versions of this game that contain cutscenes, she correctly addresses Satan by his name this time, but Satan himself flips the joke on its head by dressing up as Santa.
- Continue Countdown: In most casesnote , losing spits out a "Continue?" screen that counts down from ten and gives you the opportunity to try again before the countdown ends.
- Continuity Nod: 2 has more than a few nods to the first game, such as a Personality Swapped version of the first game's Arle vs. Draco scene and Arle remembering Sasoriman's name.
- Copy Protection: As described on The Cutting Room Floor
, the arcade version will disable the garbage system if it suspects that it is illegally burned onto an arcade board. Try to modify the routine that disables garbage, and it not only disables garbage anyway but also softlocks the game at the match results screen. - Earn Your Bad Ending: It is possible to get a Non-Standard Game Over by defeating all enemies in a floor, including the secret extra opponent you get if you don't have enough experience points, without being able to move to the next floor. Due to how progression works, however, it's very difficult to pull off, even moreso in the first floors as there are much more opponents than you'd normally need to move to the next floor. In fact, the secret opponent in the first floor is none other than Masked Prince, the True Final Boss!
- Getting the Boot: This game's Non-Standard Game Over involves Arle and Carbuncle being unceremoniously kicked out of the tower.
- Inconsistent Spelling: Sega 3D Classics Collection's manual goes with the actual game's romanizations (except Satan, who mostly gets the "Dark Prince" treatment). The in-game hints, on the other hand, give us "Leroux" and "Scherzo" instead of Rulue and Schezo.
- It's All Upstairs From Here: The default gameplay mode sees Arle scaling a tower occupied by rival Puyo Puyo players.
- Market-Based Title: Because "Tsu" doesn't translate well to an English-speaking audience (as it's a pun that only works in Japanese), official English releases simply call it Puyo Puyo 2.
- Mythology Gag: 3D Puyo Puyo 2's manual explicitly namedrops Rulue's Spring Break of Fists, making it one of the few (if not the only) direct references to Disc Station from Sega.
- Obvious Rule Patch: Much of 2 is focused around correcting oddities from the 1992 Puyo Puyo. Offset places emphasis on building the best chain, whereas matches in the first game were won by becoming the first player to generate just enough Nuisance to bury the opponent. Margin Time keeps players who can't chain very well from hogging the arcade machine forever. Double Rotation/Quick Turn gives increased control flexibility to remove situations where the player would be locked into defeat despite having free space left on their field.
- Recycled Title: The Neo Geo Pocket Color port is one of three games to be released as Puyo Pop internationally; the other two are Minna de Puyo Puyo for the Game Boy Advance and an original game for the N-Gage.
- Rocket-Tag Gameplay: The arcade version uses a different damage formula in single-player than in multiplayer, one in which way more garbage is generated on average.
- Sequel Escalation: The first arcade game has 16note enemies. Tsu has at least 30. To be fair, an average playthrough this game will likely contain around the same number of opponents as a playthrough of the first game's scenario mode.
- Stalked by the Bell: This game introduces "Margin Time" which, after a certain amount of time has passed, will multiply the amount of Garbage Puyo that is generated in an attempt to force the end of the match.
- Too Long; Didn't Dub:
- Unlike Puyo Pop Fever (and especially unlike the English arcade game), the Neo Geo Pocket Color port doesn't translate the Japanese words that are used in character names. Even the four-letter abbreviations that appear above the characters' preview window are purely based on the Japanese names, despite the fact that nearly every other version of 2 uses English words for those. (Sasoriman usually becomes "SCOP", Uroko Sakana Bito becomes "MERM", and Mamono becomes "DEMN")
- The same game's manual retains "OJAMA" as the name of the garbage Puyo as opposed to "Nuisance".
- Taken to the extreme for the Wii VC and Sega 3D Classics Collection ports, which are the Japanese versions with absolutely nothing touched. Super Puyo Puyo 2 on the Nintendo Switch SNES Online service likewise doesn't have any translated text.
- True Final Boss: Beat the tower without using a continue and with a high enough score, and you face Masked Prince as the final boss. Defeat every opponent on the first floor without earning enough EXP to rank up — in a game where manually dropping Puyos gives points and you don't lose EXP when you continue — and you also face Masked Prince.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Nohoho and Serilly are disproportionately difficult relative to the other second floor opponents. If you manage to get by without battling either of them, then your first opponent on the third floor will definitely count.
