Puyo Puyo / YMMV - TV Tropes

Games with their own YMMV subpages:

Main series

Spin-off games

Nazo Puyo
Puyo Puyo!! Quest

YMMV tropes for other series installments, and the franchise as a whole:

open/close all folders

Tropes A to M

Adaptation Displacement: Outside of Japan, the arcade game is displaced by Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine and Kirby's Avalanche, to the point that some perceive the original as a ripoff. For fans of Puyo Puyo, this can cause backlash. That said, thanks to the internet bringing more awareness to the series and Sega's increased willingness to bring over and market Puyo Puyo outside of Japan, this has begun to die down slightly.
Adorkable:
- Schezo has two sides to him: one where he attempts to keep a cool head in spite of his poor vocabulary, and the other that adores cute things and doesn't even try to hide it, and is easily flustered when (he thinks) someone's interested in him romantically. His love of cute things makes him look like a big weirdo to his acquaintances, but his fans find that side of him incredibly endearing.
- Dark Prince, the lord of the Puyo Underworld acts no better than a lovestruck schoolgirl. To everyone around him, it makes him come off as an immature Manchild. To the players? It comes off as entertaining.
Alternative Character Interpretation:
- At least during Compile's run, there are implications that Draco is competitive about beauty because of her own insecurity, either due to being boyish (being called out for this in her Tsu enemy description) or due to being part-dragon. Either way, Sega has closed the door on this by emphasizing her ditzy traits over everything else.
- Possessed Klug certainly acts the part of a Card-Carrying Villain, but lacks any stated plans beyond restoring his original body and is never implied to have done anything objectionable in his known backstory. This has led some fans to speculate that the demon may not even be truly evil at all, but merely desperate to escape his prison and get his old body back and may be playing evil or been turned evil through mistreatment.
- In regards to Possessed Klug's rather deep English voice, some players like to claim the deep voice is what The Demon sounds like without going through Klug as a vocal-filtered mouthpiece.
- Is Ecolo a monster, a creature with Blue-and-Orange Morality that loves Ringo, or a Yandere that loves Ringo?
- Klug and Raffina. Are they purely a Jerkass through and through, or do they actually have kinder tendencies and inner conflicts they don't want to admit? Evidence for Raffina from Puyo Puyo 20th Anniversary implies that she might have self-esteem issues due to her weak magical abilities. On top of this, some people treat the conflicting relationship between Raffina and Klug as Belligerent Sexual Tension.
- There is evidence in Compile's runs of Puyo Puyo and Madou Monogatari both that Witch may have a crush on Schezo (fawning over him in Puyolympics, calling him cool and wanting to touch him in Madou Monogatari Saturn). Are their belligerent interactions the result of actual accidental phrasing or is Witch really trying to tell Schezo she likes him but Cannot Spit It Out?
- Is Sig as indifferent about his anomalies as he often claims to be or his he actually more concerned about them then he let's on? The series provides plenty mixed messages to add fuel for both sites.
- Considering that early promo material for Puyo Puyo Fever reveals that Lidelle was discriminated and bullied due to being a demihuman, several people have brought up the question if Lidelle is shy because of how hurt she was from being discriminated to the point of passivity. This could also bring a different light to her Shrinking Violet tendencies: Primp Town is full of a variety of eccentric and odd citizens who are okay with being who they are, and she could possibly be scared for their safety considering she was ridiculed for her own unusual traits. Given that Raffina's self-esteem issues over lack of magical prowess, alongside Klug's inferiority complex AND Amitie likely being a goddess (though only mentioned in Puyo Puyo!! Quest) are confirmed to be canon... it doesn't paint a pretty picture for why Lidelle is the way she is.
- There's an In-Universe example with Popoi: Amitie takes all of his Prince of Darkness talk at face value, while Raffina - who reaches him way ahead of schedule - concludes that the whole deal is nothing more than Accord messing with her and her classmates. The game never gives a definitive answer, but only one character gets their brains scrambled for their assumption and it isn't Amitie.
- Schezo goes back and forth on just exactly how evil he is, with some games treating him as a villain or just barely willing to work with Arle and/or Rulue while others treat him as a friendly rival. With various conflicting backstories as to how exactly he became the Dark Wizard seen in Madou Monogatari II (thanks to Compile retconning their own established canon), there is plenty of room for alternative interpretations, including that he was brainwashed into evil by the previous Dark Wizard or that he was genuinely evil but softened up due to gaining tentative friendships with the other cast members.
- Somewhat relevant to the above, Schezo's magic abilities and spells are hard to pin down. While his powers are mostly solidified in SEGA games, his powers in Compile isn't so clear-cut. Thunderstorm and his signature Areiado/Areiado Special seem to be his only consistent spells, with games like Madou Monogatari: Tower of the Magician giving him Fire Storm, Ice Storm, and Diacute, just like Arle in other Madou and Puyo games. Not to mention Puyo Puyo Sun, where he seems to be able to turn himself and his sword independent from each other into shadows, a power which is never expanded upon.
Americans Hate Tingle:
- Ragnus Bishasi is well-liked in Japan, to the point of becoming an Canon Immigrant into the main Puyo games. In the west, he is a Base-Breaking Character, with some very dedicated fans who love him but other people who deride him due to his prominence in the convoluted backstory and in the Shin Madou Monogatari novels. There is also a third camp of fans who specifically love his Butt-Monkey incarnation in games like SUN or Minna and dislike or find him boring in Madou Monogatari, where he is played far more straight.
- Feli is another example of beloved character in Japan (Stalker with a Crush, Elegant Gothic Lolita, etc.) that's very divisive overseas as her quirks are considered less cute and more creepy by the western fandom.
- Arle/Schezo is pretty much the Puyo ship in Japan, and while it does have a loyal following in the west, it noticably falls behind its counterparts Amitie/Sig and Ringo/Maguro and has some rather vocal detractors. The most common point made against it is, if taking the Chronology into account, the significant age difference between them, but some also don't enjoy it due to the mostly antagonistic nature of their dynamic or simple preference for other ships.
- While also perfectly well liked in Japan, Arle/Dark Prince gets this even more; since many western fans consider his canon crush on Arle already creepy as is, thanks to its obsessive nature and the huge age difference between them, plus all the manipulative stunts Dark Prince pulls in order to trick Arle into liking him. Dark Prince himself tends to get backlash for this reason, but not as severe since he still gets the Draco in Leather Pants treatment.
- Rafisol has received some flak from westerners, due to them being disappointed that the final character of Chronicle was a clone of Ally when it could have been given to a fan-favourite returning villain or someone newer, not to mention seeing her as an uninspired Evil Knockoff, Character Development be damned.
Angel/Devil Shipping:
- Despite the amount of fans that are grossed out by them, Arle x Schezo and Arle x Dark Prince are still popular pairings, especially in Japan.
- There are also some fans who ship Ringo with Ecolo, despite the latter being a villain and the former not reciprocating his feelings.
Anti-Climax Boss: Masked Prince in Tsu is a worthy True Final Boss. Masked Prince in Box's Scramble mode, on the other hand, is a downgrade from the four (potentially five) Yo~n-rule opponents that precede him, as they have special attacks and abilities while he uses Tsu rules and has nothing that they don't have.
Archive Panic: Being that there are 16 games in the main Puyo Puyo series on its own as of 2020, not counting Madou Monogatari, the Puyo spinoffs, or the light novels, going through the entire franchise might keep you busy for a while.
Audience-Alienating Era: Between 1998-2001, due to a combination of Puyo Puyo~n suffering from Sequelitis and Compile desperately trying to Follow the Leader with various fads at the time like DanceDanceRevolution and Pokémon. There was also the push for a unified timeline, which (from what accounts can be found) was received well by newer fans but disliked by diehards. Some would argue the franchise was starting to show signs of entering a Dork Age with Puyo Puyo SUN having more mixed reception than its arcade predecessors, and the general exploitation of the franchise's popularity with an increasing saturation of games. Perhaps not so coincidentally, these were the years where Sega owned the series yet Compile still had near-complete control.
Awesome Art: The style from 20th onwards is generally considered the peak of SEGA's art direction for the series, to the point where even people who don't play or enjoy Quest have been known to follow it, simply because of the art for all the characters and their alt designs. With that said, the style used in Fever 2 and 15th, while simpler, is also very visually pleasing, and as the obscure Pachislot has shown, looks especially fantastic when animated.
Awesome Music: Here.
Badass Decay:
- Both Schezo and Dark Prince got hit pretty hard by this following their debuts in Madou Monogatari II. Dark Prince suffers from this slightly moreso than Schezo (even in recent games), as the latter at least makes an attempt to come off as serious and competent when he needs to be.
- Following her return to the series in Puyo Puyo 7, Draco got hit hard by this as well, as a consequence of losing I.Q points and becoming the resident Joke Character. She also became way less of a tomboy and more of a whiny klutz.
Base-Breaking Character:
- Any character that has a particularly annoying voice can invoke this. Since matches can potentially last for hours between skilled players, this can be justified. To put this into perspective, even Draco, despite being an otherwise surprisingly popular character, tends to get criticism for her voice clips being grating. This may also explain why certain characters like Hoho and the Frankensteins were quickly Put on a Bus after Puyo Puyo Fever 2.
- Suketoudara. People either find him an amusing Plucky Comic Relief character, or an annoying and useless character. The fact he gets an oddly large amount of exposure in promotions and appearances in games also gives him some Creator's Pet vibes.
- Raffina. She's still a popular enough character to avert the Put on a Bus problem a lot of characters go through, and as mentioned above in the Alternative Character Interpretation section, some people view her as sympathetic, but there's still a group of people that doesn't like her Jerkass attitude.
  - Raffina has also been disliked for things unrelated to her Alpha Bitch tendencies. She is often seen as an inferior version of Rulue and is viewed as significantly less interesting than the other four Primp Magic students.
- Ess is easily the most controversial Puyo Puyo Tetris character; some love her, while others can't stand her nasty attitude and treatment of Amitie.
- For many, Ally is very endearing because of her upbeat nature and obsession with love while being a genuinely hilarious character to watch due to the fact that her Love Freak tendencies make her come off as unintentionally quirky. Some fans however, outright deride for those exact same reasons, viewing her as a flat and one-note character who adds little as a protagonist and believe that her "accidental weirdo" tendencies are done better by Schezo.
- Arle herself, at least in the context of Puyo Puyo!! Quest. She has more alternate versions than any other character, which is either fine because she is the original protagonist, or not fine because she doesn't need more when there are other popular characters that either don't have alts or only have a few. The fact she got a gacha campaign focused on her doesn't help matters. Arle's cards also tend to be very overpowered compared to the other cards in a banner set, resulting in accusations of Creator's Pet. It is interesting to note that Amitie and Ringo have more alts than anyone not named Arle, yet don't receive nearly as many complaints.
- While Schezo himself is consistently very popular, more divisive is his Innocent Innuendo-laden speech. While many find them the most hilarious part of his character, and something to look forward to anytime he opens his mouth, others are less amused/comfortable with them, considering it out of place in a kid's series (ESPECIALLY in the SEGA-era of games) or a detriment to his character he can't escape.
Broken Base:
- Probably the most recurring one is how Compile and SEGA handle the Puyo Puyo franchise, and which one does it better. This often boils down to how the games are handled, which has the better designed characters, and how the stories and character interactions are handled. This sometimes gets bad to the point where certain fans only stick to one side and it borders on Fanon Discontinuity for the other side.
- The shift away from the anime-esque aesthetic of the original games in favor of a more exaggerated and cartoony art style beginning with Fever has been a divisive move amongst fans. Some adore the new art style and greatly prefers it for how unique and charming it looks compared to the more "generic" anime style in earlier games, while others hate it and see as a simplified and kiddy downgrade from the more cool and detailed anime aesthetic of the previous games.
- When it comes to the games' storytelling, there is no clear-cut agreement on the apparent canonicity of the story. There is the camp that is comfortable with treating every game as canon to some extent, while there are some that deny the importance of some games since they never get brought up again. Then there's also the side media such as the novels and audio dramas that most fans are quick to dismiss due to lack of translations, when there are some that want translations as they see it as an extension to the characters they love outside of the lightweight and self-contained stories in the games.
- There's a little debate to how much of an issue that the Flanderization of the cast is in the Sega-developed games. This debate especially applies to a portion of the Compile-created characters such as Schezo, Rulue, Dark Prince, and Draco, but also extends to some of the Fever characters such as Amitie and Sig. Either it's a big deal and a waste of their potential characterization, or the change in characterization is overblown and the characters are roughly as "rounded" as they have been since they were introduced. Then, of course, there is a third camp that does not care about the story at all and doesn't see any of this as a big deal.
- While some of Puyo Puyo Champions localizated names were accepted for the most part (like Seriri becoming the more Western-sounding Serilly), a few of them weren't. It's the case of "Demiserf" (Demon Servant), "Possessed Klug" (Strange Klug) and "Alter Ecolo" (Unusual Ecolo). Either they're completely unnecessary changes that serve nothing but to make characters harder to refer to (as they've held those names for years) or an comprehensible attempt from SEGA to use less Non Indicative Names (latter two) and avoid attention from the Moral Guardians (the former), similar to Satan/Dark Prince.
- Exclusive to the western fandom is a persistent one on whether or not age gaps between certain characters are problematic for shipping purposes, usually in reference to Arle/Schezo and Arle/Dark Prince. This in turn causes both ships to become a far more divisive subject in the west than they ever were in Japan.
- What is or isn't canon can cause quite the debate, which isn't helped by the franchise itself playing very fast and loose with its continuity.
  - While SEGA's games have referenced Madou Monogatari specific lore a number of times^note, the games have an arm's-length relationship with its ancestor, only brushing upon minor points and never elaborating upon them due to its checkered canonicity.
  - In terms of individual games 15th is the most debated. Some will declare it non-canon due to the lack of a single coherent storyline and unclear ending, while others will point out that the game establishes elements like the return of Compile's cast, Klug and Feli's rivalry or Schezo's interest in Sig's arm, that were kept in future games and that SUN and Fever had multiple endings themselves. The fact that 15th also happens to contain a lot of very well liked writing and characterizations for the cast (most notably Sig and Dapper Bones) only adds more fuel to the fire.
Casual-Competitive Conflict: Puyo Puyo made its mark on the puzzle game genre by simultaneously offering a highly-competitive Player Vs Player game and having a colorful stable of characters engaging in amusing hijinks. While there are many fans that can equally enjoy both aspects of the series, fans who lean slightly towards the gameplay aspects and fans who lean slightly towards the story and lore aspects occasionally find themselves at odds at each other over what constitutes a "good" game and what they feel the developers should be focusing on:
- Gameplay-first fans tend to take more issue with the series' multiple Scrappy Mechanics and are more likely to stick to playing Tsu, the Anniversaries, Chronicle, and/or Champions. On the other hand, fans who are into the series primarily for the characters and the lore tend to claim that most Puyo gameplay rulesets are similar enough in quality that the character interactions are what really distinguish the games. This also extends to the character roster and whether or not the 24 character "rule" is a big deal: fans invested in the story and character aspect are upset that Sega keeps shedding characters (and disproportionately from the Fever duology, at that) to hit the character limit while gameplay-first fans are quick to point out that there's not much difference between characters outside of Yo~n, Fever, Ice Block, and similar rulesets.
- The "story vs gameplay" argument can be succinctly summarized by comparing Puyo Puyo Tetris and Puyo Puyo Champions. Puyo Puyo Tetris is praised for its story and character interactions, but detractors feel Puyo Puyo and Tetris mesh poorly beyond Swap mode (where they don't directly interact) and sometimes Big Bang mode. Puyo Puyo Champions, on the other hand, is a no-frills platform to play Tsu- and Fever-rule matches; this is perfect for gameplay-first fans, but detractors feel that the game is pointless without a story mode and are especially upset that fan favorite characters Klug, Lemres, Feli, and Ecolo were dropped for Puyo Puyo!! Quest characters.
- Even among gameplay rulesets, Tsu is seen as the "competitive" rule while everything else (but especially Sega-developed rules) plays the role of "casual." Mechanics like Sun Puyo, continuous offset, and Fever/Transformation are fun for players who are indifferent about huge chains but get in the way of more serious players; likewise, more serious players find Tsu's simple, sharp mechanics fun while others find it "vanilla" and Nintendo Hard.
- It could argued that the seeds of this trope had been there since the inception of the series, upon comparison of the original arcade versions of the 1992 Puyo Puyo and Tsu. The first arcade game has the cutscenes and wacky characterization that the series has since become known for, but the gameplay very quickly breaks down once players pass a certain skill threshold. While Tsu is near-universally seen as a massive gameplay improvement, including a new roulette-style single player system, the original arcade version does not have any character interactions and reduces each opponent to a short description. This is the most likely reason why both share First Installment Wins status in Japan and within the series, instead of Tsu completely overshadowing the first arcade game.
Character Tiers:
- Fever and henshin rule gives each character different chain powers and dropsets, leaving room for this. However, the Puyo players most likely to be affected by said tiers are generally playing Tsu rule instead, meaning that very little discussion actually happens.
- For Fever rules, Arle is a mixed bag. She's limited to pairs only, allowing the pros to efficiently create their massive chains in whatever way they want to build it with less clutter. The drawback to this is that due to her low puyo count, she builds chains slower than larger drop sets and has far less opportunities to offset to get into Fever. On top of that, she has to conform to having two X's on the field, meaning she can't utilize all of the space to build.
- On the other hand, bigger drop sets can bring in more puyo on the field quickly and thus having material to harass the opponent with small chains, build freestyle chains, or having an easier time getting into fever/henshin. This has the disadvantage of having much more puyo to manage, leading to a lot of unnecessary clutter. Carbuncle has the "biggest" drop set in the game.
- There are also chaining power tiers inside and outside fever/henshin, though those effects are really noticeable when you rack up big chains. Even then, building higher than a 10 in the heat of battle is challenging to attack with, and anything lower is nothing too game-changing.
Common Knowledge: Now has it's own page.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
- Some people never play anything other than Tsu, and/or Fever, and/or Henshin modes (possibly playing only Arle or Carbuncle due to their drop set in Fever/Henshin). Good luck trying to find someone to play other modes like Excavation.
- In a sad twist, it seems that most of Puyo Puyo Tetris's online population flat-out refuses to battle Puyo players. Good luck trying to play any online mode that isn't Versus or Swap either way, especially with competitive players. On the other hand, Sega seems well aware that most people play Puyo Puyo for Player Versus Player and Tetris for Marathon, as the Switch version has quick start options on the title screen that drop you straight into those modes.
Crosses the Line Twice: Many of Schezo's innuendos, some going as far to imply molestation, normally come off as poor taste. It comes of as hysterical because Schezo is genuinely oblivious to his bad vocab choices.
Cult Classic: The series' popularity in the English-speaking world can be described as this, as the series never hit mainstream even with the release of high-selling titles like Puyo Puyo Tetris, but those who have heard of it are quite dedicated to it.
Demonic Spiders: Some characters have particularly nasty AI that can cause intermediate players to gave over fairly early on.
- The very first game has Panotty, a character who plays aggressively and primarily makes 2-4 chains. While this would be fairly manageable in any later game, due to such chains being easy to offset, there is no offsetting in the original game. Unless you can react in kind, Panotty can easily overwhelm you before you can even start your first chain.
- Any of the frog characters and Ai, for their infamous frogstacking strategy. They quickly fill up the last three columns of their board with puyos, and then proceed to try to set off the best possible chain with what they come up with. Unlike other Luck-Based Mission stacking methods, frogstacking pays off far too frequently. If you're not lucky, they can set off a massive chain with little effort.
- The boss characters (Dark Prince, Lemres, Ecolo) are the most likely ones to end a good Endurance run, due to their incredible speed and chaining skill. Endurance mode is kind enough to save these characters for higher win streaks, but unless you've got incredible skill, those points can often serve as the ending point.
Designated Hero: Played for Laughs. A fair few matches throughout many games' campaign modes are set off by Arle mocking or bullying a passer-by, angering them into challenging her. Sometimes she's even depicted as a Comedic Sociopath, gleefully beating up the other characters. Meanwhile, several of the other playable characters are even worse.
Designated Villain: Dark Prince. He is more or less treated as the series' resident villain, despite not doing anything truly evil ever since the early Madou Monogatari days (he was once responsible for enlarging the sun just for tanning his skin in Puyo Puyo SUN, but his reasons for doing so were not based on anything particularly evil). Schezo in comparison is far more selfish and power-hungry, and was even behind the darkest scheme in the series yet, but no one really treats his as a potential mastermind for anything nowadays, to the point Arle literally calls for his help in Tetris as if he were a longtime friend or something.
Diagnosed by the Audience: While some of it could be the result of him being half of a demon, Sig displays a few traits that are indicative of neurodivergence and he has been considered to be autistic by a few fans as a result - he doesn't emote much, he speaks with a slower voice in the Japanese games, and he has an obsession with bugs.
Difficulty Spike:
- If you're playing an earlier game, and the field background and/or music changes, you can expect one of these to follow. There's even one in the Beginner's course of the first game: the drop speed against Mummy is much, much faster than the leisurely pace of the previous opponents.
- HaraHara courses aren't called "hard" for nothing.
- Story battles to Free Battle in the newer games. The story AI is barely better than the AI in the old games, while the higher-level Free Battle AI opponents (Dark Prince, Ecolo, Possessed Klug, Accord, etc) will make short work of anyone without an intermediate level of Puyo knowledge.
- In the first game, Zoh Daimaoh is the last Mook-based character. The game's drop speed is kicked up another notch and he goes for more chains than most of his predecessors.
Draco in Leather Pants:
- Ecolo is either an Omnicidal Maniac (7) or Well-Intentioned Extremist (20th) who on at least two occasions induces apocalypse-tier disasters that threatened the universe, and has implications of Crazy Jealous Guy towards Ringo. However, in the fanon, this aspect doesn't come to play, either highlighting his general goofiness or his humanoid "Unusual Ecolo" persona being cute (sometimes with Ringo for Shipping reasons).
- Klug is a Jerkass with an affinity for dark magic, who will go as low as to demand people to bow down to him, in exchange for information they need and has fewer hints of Hidden Depths then his rival Raffina. Expect his fanbase to instead portray him as a more Adorkable type of nerd, downplaying or outright removing his negative qualities to make him outright friendly and helpful. This often comes with a Freudian Excuse, usually tied to his never seen or mentioned parents.
- Dark Prince and Schezo get a combo of this and Ron the Death Eater, thanks to significant amounts of Depending on the Writer, that are often very difficult to reconcile.
  - Depending on where you look Dark Prince can either just be a completely harmless and lovesick goof, that wouldn't hurt a fly or a possessive Yandere for Arle, to such abusive levels that he would lock her away just to keep her for himself.
  - While Schezo is already tamer in the SEGA games, many take it even further by ignoring his still remaining antagonistic traits, usually for Shipping reasons and to instead focus on his good looks and Adorkable moments. While much fewer, there are also some fans that downplay his redeeming qualities to treat him more like a straight villain.
Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game:
- You read that right; this trope applies to a Falling Blocks game! The cast of characters and the wacky situations that they are put in is a major selling point for some. Sega has definitely caught on, with their traditional Puyo Puyo games generally having a sizable story mode and Puyo Puyo!! Quest serving as a never-ending stream of new characters.
- Puyo Puyo Sun is a less extreme version of this trope, generally being praised for its hilarious cutscenes and 32-bit aesthetics rather than its So Okay, It's Average gameplay brought on by the Sun Puyo Scrappy Mechanic.
- The more obscure Compile-era games take this trope to its logical conclusion, with lore fans getting the details through videos and summaries instead of playing through every single one of the games.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- The classic examples for the Puyo Puyo series are Draco and Witch, both of which were generic enemies in the Madou Monogatari series, but quickly gained a strong following within the fanbase (Witch was the 3rd most popular character behind Arle and Schezo in Compile's day), enough so that Draco got her own story scenario in SUN and Witch got her own DiscStation title called Comet Summoner and a prominent role and backstory in Tower of the Magician, a game made specifically after Compile asked which characters fans would like to see in a game without Arle (which Schezo and Witch won). Both characters' absence between Fever and 15th was often criticized, enough that their return in 7 was seen as a highlight. Witch's popularity eventually got her a Crowned alt. in Puyo Quest, being the second character to obtain the honor.
- Sig is a huge fan favorite, to the point where he is arguably the most popular Fever era character, his popularity reflected in being the first Crowned character in Puyo Quest. The sentiment appears to be shared by Sega's staff as well, as he tied with Arle and the Puyos for 2nd place in their 25th Anniversary poll.
- Doppelganger Arle, despite the sparse appearances in both Madou Monogatari and Puyo Puyo, is a fondly remembered character among fans. This may have to do with her appearance already being based on a popular character, but also the fact she's a rare example of an antagonist taken seriously.
- Possessed Klug is among the most beloved Fever characters, big reasons for this include him being Sig's Evil Counterpart and the backstory that connects them.
- Despite being demoted to a supporting character since his debut, Lemres has a surprisingly sizeable fanbase, due to his design, being one of the friendliest and smartest characters in the cast, and having one of the more popular stories in 20th Anniversary. He frequently reaches the top 10s in popularity polls, has dedicated fan groups on Twitter, and out of all of the character cuts in Champions, his is the most frequently lamented.
- Ocean Prince's human form, Unusual Ecolo, and Black Sig. The former two even tend to get more fanart then their "normal" forms, and Unusual Ecolo even has a canon justification from a Drama CD, making him a bit more fleshed out from the other two.
Evil Is Cool:
- Both Schezo and the Dark Prince enjoy some, being regularly occurring encounters.
- Doppelganger Arle for her dark backstory and cool Pierrot disguise.
- Possessed Klug is Klug stripped away from all the things that make him uncool. He also has one of the most fascinating backstories in the series, somewhat resembling the lore from the Compile days.
Fan Nickname:
- "Madou-era" is used interchangeably with "Compile-era" to refer to Compile's Puyo Puyo games.
- "OPP" (as in Original Puyo Puyo) is the most common shorthand for the first arcade game among the international fanbase.
- A number of games were referred to under different titles in the early fanbase, either to differentiate between similarly-named entries, to skip over difficult kanji in the Japanese titles, or simply due to lack of research. While many of these aren't used anymore, some of them (particularly the Disc Station games) have survived on pure fandom inertia:
  - "Puyo Puyo Disk Drive" for the Famicom Disk System Puyo Puyo, whose official name is Famimaga Disk Vol. 5: Puyo Puyo.
  - "Rulue's Spring Break of Fists" for Rulue's Iron-Fist Spring Break. The fandom of the time admitted that they didn't know how to translate "Tekken" and came up with this.^note This one is still widely accepted, especially after Sega used the Puyo Nexus wiki as a point of reference for 3D Puyo Puyo 2's manual and went with "Rulue's Spring Break of Fists".
- "Rally Mode" refers to both Tsu's Expert (Tsu) Mode and Box's Scramble Mode, both being character gauntlets with definite start and endpoints unlike the endless competitive modes in Pocket Puyo Puyo~n and the Anniversaries.
- Some fans like to refer to Possessed Klug as Ayashii (inspired by his Japanese name Ayashii Kuru-ku), since the demon still lacks a proper name in canon.
- In Japanese, Ragnus/Lagnus's name (ラグナス) has the kana for eggplant (なす), so Japanese fans will often draw an eggplant beside him or refer to him as Eggplant. Similarly, the English community sometimes gives him nicknames revolving around the word "lasagna".
- "Pedobear" for Risukuma, due to his design in 7 and his "You can touch [me] as much as you want, little miss (Amitie)" line. Has fallen into disuse over the years, though.
- "Tara Stacking," "Harpy Stacking," and "Frog Stacking" refer to the act of mimicking the strategy of a CPU-controlled Suketoudara, Harpy, and Nohoho respectively.
- "Harassment," the name given to the act of sending small amounts of garbage to slow or stop the construction of the opponent's main chain. The fandom didn't really catch onto the "unfortunate" part until Sega's tutorial video covering this technique generated snark from the gaming community at large.
- Klug's English alt voice in Tetris 2 is often called “uwu Klug” or “Kwug” due to his Elmuh Fudd Syndwome resembling online UwU speak.
- Ess's Southern Belle alt voice Tetris 2 is nicknamed the punny "TexEss".
- "Gender" for Rozatte, due to his extremely feminine appearance (and voice in the English dub).
- For Puyo Puyo!! Quest, we have Rokia/Roquier, who's often called "Nokia N-Gage" by fans, partially for the sake of Theme Naming with his investigation partner, who's name is Atari.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Pairings involving the 'A Girl' and the 'S Boy' of the same ARS trio (Arle/Schezo, Amitie/Sig, and Andou Ringo/Sasaki Maguro) are always the most popular pairing of their respective eras. This is a lot less dominant in the western fandom, but all three still retain support there as well, especially Amitie/Sig.
- Schezo/Witch is also really big, thanks to noticeable teasing in canon and a very popular alternative for fans who don't like Arle/Schezo.
- Sig/Klug, Schezo/Lemres, Sig/Possessed Klug, and Salde/Otomo are all particularly common Yaoi pairings, while the Yuri site strongly gravitates towards Arle/Witch, Arle/Doppelganger Arle, or Ally/Rafisol.
- Schezo/Lemres and Arle/Sig are by far the most strongly supported ships between a Compile and a SEGA character, which is notable, because most of the commonly seen pairings usually stick to two characters of the same era.
- After Puyo Puyo Tetris quite a number of fans began to ship Ringo/Tee, especially in the west due to the fact that Tetris was the first Puyo Puyo game localized since 2004 and was thus a lot of people's first exposure to the franchise. It helps that the two get a fair amount of Ship Tease in the game. To a much lesser extent some people also began to ship Maguro/Ess and Risukuma/Ai.
- Due to the two's interaction in Chapter 6 of Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, quite a few fans have began to ship Ally/Marle.
Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Mentioning that a Puyo Puyo game looks like a ripoff of one of its Dolled Up Installments will make for some very unhappy Puyo fans.
Fandom Rivalry:
- For a very long time, the Puyo Puyo fandom took out much of its frustration regarding the series's minimal western presence on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, feeling that Sega America is overly-obsessed with Sonic at the expense of their other properties. It also dipped into Puyo fans accusing Sonic fans of believing that It's All About Them. While Mean Bean Machine is still a sore spot, the combination of the localizations of Puyo Puyo Tetris and Puyo Puyo Champions, Puyo Puyo being referenced in Sonic games (most notably a boss battle in Sonic Mania that requires the player to win a Puyo match), Sonic's appearance in Tetris 2 as a Guest Fighter, and Sega's increasing willingness to use Puyo Puyo for crossovers has led to this cooling down quite a bit.
- Thanks to a swath of Puyo Tetris fans complaining about Puyo Champions not having Tetris, Puyo Puyo fans have issues with Tetris fans due to missing the entire point of Champions.
Fandom-Specific Plot:
- Red Amitie and Dark (Black) Sig (their alternate forms from 20th Anniversary) are often understood to be destined enemies, presumably in a future where Sig gets fully possessed by his demon ancestor and Amitie obtains power from the people who were responsible for sealing said ancestor (usually through her hat). In any case, it's a common plot in angsty Sig x Amitie stories, where one side tends to tragically die and the other ends up despairing as a result.
- Doppelganger Arle returning and getting to find redemption is a very popular plot among fans who want a Happy Ending for Doppel and frequently used as a vehicle for Shipping her with any character of choice.
- A more lighthearted version of this involves Klug actually befriending the demon living in his book (in his little red form, which Klug strangely ignores in the games), with said demon becoming a sort of mentor or parental figure to Klug.
Fanfic Fuel:
- Characters besides Klug getting possessed by the demon is a fairly popular subject for fan art. Possessed Sig is a obvious example, but there are plenty others out there, such as Possessed Witch or Possessed Tee.
- As noted in One-Scene Wonder, some people enjoy coming up with Mini and Mega forms for characters not present in 7, such as Lidelle, Accord or Witch.
- How and why Yu and Rei died? There are hints this was a tragic affair, but it's never further elaborated in the games proper.
- What happened to Ess' mom/Ex's wife? No mention is ever made of her in either of the two Tetris games.
Fandom VIP: If you have ever looked up shipping fanart of Sig x Amitie, there is a high chance you have come across the fanart made by the Chilean artist MacaHeroes, alternatively known as just Maca or Maku. While she does draw other Puyo and gaming fanart, she's very outspoken in her support of the couple and tends to be known by other Puyo fans in the West who ship the couple. It's to the point where at least one of her pieces of shipping fanart - specifically this one - was retweeted by the official Puyo Twitter/X account (more because they liked the art and less because of any approval of the couple, but still).
Fanon: While Arle's old localized name ("Silvana") has been long retconned from canon in favor of her original name, it isn't uncommon for some fans to merge Arle's original and localized names together to form one name, giving her the name, "Arle Silvana Nadja".
Fanon Discontinuity: "Dark Prince" is a name change utterly despised by a large number of pre-Tetris fans. This goes so far as to see blatantly-Woolsey'd lines in Puyo Puyo Tetris attributed to "Satan" instead of Dark Prince. For reference, the only other name changes that even reach Broken Base territory are in Champions, and the fandom is otherwise incredibly receptive to changes in localization. The most likely motive comes down to sticking it to Sega's attempt at Bowdlerization, regardless of how much of a borderline In Name Only rendition of Satan that the Puyo Puyo character is. The exception is "Onesie Prince", which is seen as hilariously fitting even by those that generally reject the Dark Prince rename.
First Installment Wins: The 16-bit arcade games are the most influential games in the series: the first arcade game is the source of the most iconic characters and music, while Tsu provides the definitive gameplay ruleset and provides its own share of oft-remixed music. This is not as prominent in the western Puyo fandom, however, as western fans generally get into the series via Newbie Booms Fever (with Amitie and the Primp Town cast as the central focus) or Tetris (which featured Ringo as the main Puyo Puyo character) and thus lack the nostalgic ties to Arle and her rivals.
- For a long time, any collaboration with an outside property would likely reference Arle, Carbuncle, and/or slightly less popular Compile characters like Dark Prince and Suketoudara over Sega's cast; this is slowly being evened out as Sega becomes more open with using the Puyo series in crossovers.
- If Puyo Puyo!! Quest and Puyo Puyo Chronicle are any indication, Arle is slowly but surely regaining the spotlight from Amitie and Ringo within the series as well. She has more alternate versions than any other character in Quest (even having multiple alternates of her alternates), and is the primary protagonist in Chronicle.
- An internal poll conducted by Sega staff and published in the 25th Anniversary Book has nearly all of the major Compile-era characters capturing at least 1% of the vote^note, with Carbuncle being the undisputed winner. Meanwhile, the newer entries are only represented by Sig, Ringo, Yu & Rei (!!), Paprisu (!!!), and Amitie.
- Unlike most characters, Draco's AI in the Compile-era vastly varied between games. When it came time for Draco to return to the series, Sega went with her original AI.
- It wasn't until Puyo Puyo Chronicle that Sega included Compile characters newer than the first arcade game in a traditional, post-Retool Puyo Puyo title, and even then, not only are they only playable in Skill Battle mode, but there’s only two of them.
- Puyo Puyo Champions trims the Fever and 7 casts down to bare essentials while not only retaining every single Compile-era character from Tetris, but also making the aforementioned Skill Battle-exclusive characters from Chronicle fully playable.
Foe Yay Shipping:
- A possible reason for the massive popularity of Arle/Schezo, since their interactions and fight in Madou Monogatari II are considered the series' Signature Scenes, with Schezo's interest on Arle's magic being easy to misconstrue as Freudian Slips both in and out-of-universe.
- Arle/Dark Prince and Ringo/Ecolo may count as this too, since neither girl reciprocate their respective antagonist's feelings.
- Dark Prince/Schezo has a reasonable following due to despising each other for pursuing Arle. Similarly, Ragnus/Schezo has a following by virtue of being Foils to each other and immediately butting heads after their "proper" introduction in Madou Monogatari Saturn. As Arle puts it...
  Arle: Wow, you two are getting along really well already!
- The basis of Sig/Possessed Klug, since the latter wants the former's body very much, as Schezo would put it.
- Klug/Raffina has a respectable following, in spite (or maybe because) of them being at each other's throats most of the time.
- Rulue/Demiserf has it's own following, due to the latter being The Rival to Rulue, right down to sharing her proficiency in martial arts.
Franchise Original Sin:
- The fact that 3 Game Gear Nazo Puyo titles were released within a year and a week (July 23, 1993 to July 29, 1994) should've been an early warning that Compile was going to milk the cow for all that it was worth. Three lightweight handheld releases in the early 90s is a far cry from the onslaught of console games, ports, and merchandising from the tail end of Compile's tenure that caused franchise fatigue.
- Compile's last years with the franchise were spent chasing popular gaming trends. The series was created on the premise of adding Madou Monogatari characters to a Tetris-type game. The difference is that this approach was novel in the early 90s, given that puzzle games up to that point generally didn't have much in the way of aesthetics.
- The move to mostly humanoid, non-mythological characters started as far back as Sun, where every single "new" character was at least partially humanoid and only one (Kikimora) was based on mythology. The complaints arguably started around when Puyo Puyo 7 was released and the more oddball characters were starting to be demoted from the series, causing some people to accuse SEGA of catering too much to the "school kids" archetype.
- Puyo Puyo characters tend to get criticisms for Flanderization in more recent installments, in some extreme cases almost being entirely different characters. This was present even in the franchise's infancy, where many of the characters in Puyo Puyo were basically caricatures of their Madou Monogatari counterparts, due to the Lighter and Softer and Excuse Plot nature of the Puyo Puyo games not allowing for much character development or backstory. Key difference is that this was compensated by the Madou Monogatari games and light novels providing context and backstory to these characters, meaning the more comical interpretations in Puyo Puyo were not an issue when Compile was running the show. However when SEGA took over, the Madou Monogatari end of things were dropped for copyright reasons, meaning that there's no longer a backbone for SEGA to rely on to flesh out the characters, making the stereotyping issue more blatant.
- Sun Puyo were arguably the series's first Scrappy Mechanic. Not as many fans take issue with Sun as they do with Yo~n because the former still holds up for fast, casual play. One could even argue that Sun Puyo were predated by Point Puyo in Tsu, the difference being that Point Puyo are significantly less obstructive and locked behind the rarely-used Rule Henka option.
- As Sun Puyo placement overrides Garbage Puyo placement for one "turn," Sun also has a primitive, janky version of "continuous offset." Said offset quirk is better known for helping to create the lengthy deadlocks that Fever rule and its derivatives are known for.
- The noticeably criticized special stage effects (such as significantly slower gravity, or a field that wraps up) from Yo~n's story mode were actually first introduced in Tsu's multiplayer mode (with effects such as reducing the amount of Puyos needed to make a chain, or replacing Nuisance Puyo with Hard Nuisance Puyo) and they are actually the reason competitive matches in Tsu are always played in the wooden stage. It's not as infamous in Tsu for the sole reason the story mode doesn't make use of those stages.
Friendly Fandoms:
- Puyo Puyo fans tend to be fans of other Falling Blocks games. This includes games that have a similar focus on competitive play and a cast of colorful characters like Panel de Pon and Magical Drop. But the biggest example is with Tetris, due to both franchises being long running and very influential, creating a Friendly Rivalry as a result. The fact Puyo Puyo Tetris happened helps solidify this. There are some western Tetris fans who are very unhappy about Puyo Puyo invading a Tetris game, but fortunately, the resentment is not reciprocated.
- Being a SEGA franchise, Puyo Puyo fans tend to have close connections with other SEGA franchises. Even Sonic the Hedgehog despite the rivalry mentioned above is not entirely immune, especially since both franchises are developed by Sonic Team. This would eventually come full-circle with Sonic himself appearing as a Guest Fighter in Tetris 2.
- There are a number of Puyo Puyo fans who are also into the Spanish-British children's cartoon Jelly Jamm, probably due to their similar wacky and light-hearted natures. The fact that Ongo from Jelly Jamm and Maguro from Puyo Puyo look similar with their prominently purple color schemes and bangs hasn't gone unnoticed, either.
Game-Breaker:
- The Fever mode, from, well, Puyo Puyo Fever, is this at least part of the time. Being defensive by offsetting your opponent's Nuisance Puyo eventually leads to you going into Fever mode and results in either you making a devastating series of counterattacks, or if your opponent is skilled enough, them going into Fever as well and prolonging the match quite a bit.
- The Transformation mode in 7, giving up between 22 and 99 seconds of invulnerability letting you build a noticeable amount of nuisance quickly and with no hurry. It is supposed to be balanced through its very low chaining power, but given how much time one has, how powerful Mega can be at harassing, and that the Mini preset chains in even numbers and its length increases by at least two (e.g. if you extend an 8-length chain to 9, you'd get a 12-length chain afterwards), it becomes overwhelming. This is especially noticeable in Endless Battle, where if you have enough time and a 99 chain in Mega mode, you can One-Hit Kill dozens of opponents before time runs out.
Gameplay Derailment: Fever deadlocks qualify. Fever mode mostly consists of watching giant preset chains pop, the only diversion being to add an extra chain or two onto the normal preset chains.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- Puyo Puyo Tetris is surprisingly a popular import title, despite Puyo Puyo having very little presence among the western audience. According to an interview with Red Bull 5G and the producer, Hosoyamada Mizuki, the demand has certainly not gone unnoticed, and was exactly what he wanted. This is reflected in that Puyo Puyo Tetris, with SEGA using an IMMENSE technicality in Ubisoft's deal with the Tetris Company to release it worldwide with one of the best translation efforts the series has ever seen. Notably, when its sequel, Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, was announced, its overseas release date is two days earlier than Japan's street date.
- Competitive Puyo Puyo has a cult following with the French, to the point where Puyo Puyo simulations like Puyo Puyo Vs. and forums have dedicated sections for French players.
- Dapper Bones has a surprisingly noticeable western fandom, who mourn his continued absence from the series, aside from Quest. In Japan, Dapper does fare better then most non-humanoids, but still tends to get less attention then even many of the least prominent human characters.
- Ringo/Tee is a very popular ship with western fans, especially compared to Japan, where it tends to be overshadowed by Ringo/Maguro, Ringo/Ecolo or even Ringo/Sig. Puyo Puyo Tetris getting localized and leading to a lot of new fans, who were introduced to Ringo alongside Tee and their Ship Tease, likely helped a lot.
- The Fever cast has a rocky relationship with the Japanese community, due to Replacement Scrappy accusations being in full effect with Yuji Naka noting that the arcade scene for Fever 1 would mostly consist of people picking Arle and no one else (especially since she's mechanically closer to Tsu rules than the at-the-time loathed Fever rules). They have a much stronger standing with Western fans, since the only other non-altered internationally release Puyo game at the time was the Game Boy Advance Puyo Pop, giving them a greater presence to stand on their own without being unfavorably compared to prior instalments. This is mostly notable in two of the Quest popularity polls rankings, where Western fans were surprised to see Amitie fail to make it into the top 10.
Girl-Show Ghetto: Presumably the reason why SEGA and Nintendo wanted the first arcade game Dolled-Up for an American/European release. Notably, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine being based on an American cartoon, while Kirby's Avalanche has a noticeable amount of American Kirby Is Hardcore both for advertisements and in-game. This may of also contributed to how Puyo Puyo rarely made cameos and crossovers with other SEGA properties despite being a rare example of a long running SEGA franchise, and why the games suffer from a lack of advertisement outside of Japan.
Good Bad Bugs:
- In almost every Arcade/Mega Drive version of the first game (including Mean Bean Machine!), holding left or right on a CPU player's joystick/D-Pad disables their ability to manual drop. Sega released an alternate arcade board that eliminates this bug, but it apparently came too late for the English or console versions to inherit the fix.
- Arle no Roux allows players to skip Minotauros and Rulue by finding an invisible tile that triggers Dark Prince's puzzles.
- Sometimes, the automatic drop speed becomes so fast that holding down on the D-Pad/Joystick actually slows your pieces down.
Gotta Ship 'Em All: The amount of characters and the dedication of the shippers have ensured that a large number of Puyo Puyo pairings have received shipping fanart and fanfictions somewhere or other, from more obvious ones to ones that involve characters who rarely, if ever, interact in canon.
Ho Yay:
- Lemres to Schezo in 15th Anniversary, where he mistook Schezo's desire for power as an advance on him, prompting the below quote. Though he denies the advance, come 20th Anniversary, Lemres isn't against dragging Schezo along for a cake baking venture after having a taste of (and approving) Schezo's work.
  Lemres: I appreciate the offer... But I apologize, I just don't swing that way.
- And then there's Lemres to Dapper in this exchange.
  Oshare: I would be madly in love with you. That is, if hadn't already met someone else before.
  Lemres: Guess someone beat me to you long ago. What a shame. I wanted to meet you while you still had long blonde hair.
- Klug's admiration for Lemres has become a defining trait of his character. He is obsessed enough with Lemres that one of his lines in Puyo Quest shows he dreams about him ("Hn... Lemres... Ah! Ahem. I-it seems I was a bit half asleep"). He even asked Lemres to lick sugar off his hand in 20th...
- Thanks to all his Accidental Innuendoes, Schezo's story in Puyo Puyo Tetris makes it sound like he's a Stalker with a Crush on Sig.
  Schezo: I just want to examine him all over!
  Schezo: I just want to ask Sig for his hand!
- During the aforementioned Schezo story, he encounters the Ocean Prince. His reaction to how adorable the prince is comes off as very homoerotic. Not helping is Schezo squeeing with flowers coming out of his head, similar to how they come out of Dark Prince's head when he talks about Arle.
Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Western fans take to calling Ringo x Tee "Apple Tea", due to the punny nature of the name and how easy it rolls off the tongue.
It's Hard, So It Sucks!: The high skill floor that's comparable to Fighting Games is pretty much the prevailing complaint about the series by players unfamiliar with it, and contributes to why the majority of online players in Puyo Puyo Tetris are Tetris players, not helped by Tetris having an edge over Puyo at the highest levels. Most players will attempt to make a chain more than two segments long, get frustrated and wonder how anybody can build those beautiful 10-chains without relying on extreme luck, and either quit (if they are playing an exclusively Puyo game) or just switch to Tetris exclusively (if they are playing Puyo Tetris). It's also very difficult to find good beginner guides especially if you don't read Japanese, leaving a great chasm between "I know the basics of the game" and "I can play competitively."
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
- Some fans feel this way about the roster selection in more recent games, especially after the cast offered in Quest. Sega seems adamant on sticking with 24 characters, and there are 17 characters that are considered mainstays.^note That leaves 7 slots to be shared between new characters and only slightly-less recurring characters like Lidelle and Ocean Prince. Characters beyond that tend to have strings attached, with Possessed Klug in 20th being treated as an alternate costume, Chronicle only having the extra characters available in Skill Battle, and Champions requiring cheat code inputs. Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 would finally take steps to address this, with a launch roster of 28 characters.
- This was Sega's takeaway from Puyo Puyo Fever 2's underperforming sales, claiming that the game didn't do enough new for casual fans. The result was Mizuki Hosoyamada being placed in charge of the franchise and a minor retool in 15th Anniversary that involved jettisoning unresolved Fever-era plotlines and, ironically, reintroducing the core Compile cast. Note this is a case where the fandom collectively and vehemently disagrees with Sega and is none too pleased with the move away from worldbuilding and lore.
Jerkass Woobie:
- The demon sealed in Klug's book. If Fever 2's backstory is to be believed, he never did anything more than stay in his castle and read books before some cruel humans decided to seal half his soul in a book as part of a prank. He's been in there for hundreds of years, unable to get back to his body. It's no wonder he wants a fight!
- Rafisol was only even a villain because she was born without any concept of the world around her or just why she was even born and only knew that she was created from dark magic, to the point where she refers to herself as an evil existence. Even after her Heel-Face Turn she is still hinted to not only loath her own existence, but also purposely hide her emotions, because she feels like she doesn't deserve happiness.
Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Good grief. With the large cast and numerous interactions, this is inevitable.
- Sig may very well be the fanbase's poster boy for this trope. Amitie, Possessed Klug, Klug, Arle, Lidelle and Raffina are only the tip of the iceberg. He is even shipped with characters he has yet to interact with, like Maguro, Serilly, Doppelganger Arle and Rafisol, Quest characters such as Dalida and Rebecca and on rare occasions even Madou Monogatari exclusives like Rune Lord and Lala. It helps that Sig's demon heritage, shades of being a Clueless Chick-Magnet and endearing Hidden Depths leave a lot of room for fans to come up with good scenarios, interactions and commonalities between him and practically everyone else in the series' massive cast.
- Schezo, with his "I want you!" line being rife with subtext, is extremely potent fuel for his ships. Of the most notable pairings, he is paired with Arle, Rulue, Witch, Dark Prince, Serilly, Ragnus, Succubus, Incubus, Rune Lord, and Doppelganger Schezo. Lemres is a popular pairing among the Fever characters, while the more surprising pairings include Klug, Sig, and Accord.
- As the most prominent protagonist in the franchise, Arle naturally falls under this as well. With her pairing choices going all the way from fellow Compile characters Schezo, Dark Prince, Witch, Rulue, or Doppelganger Arle, Madou exclusives such as Camus, Lala or Devil, to SEGA's own characters, led by Sig and Amitie.
- Despite only making sparse appearances, Doppelganger Arle has found herself paired up with Arle, Dark Prince, Doppelganger Schezo, Schezo, Rulue, Sig, Possessed Klug and Rafisol. Rather impressive, for someone who lacks any on-screen interactions with anyone besides Arle, in all games she appears in.
- One of the more surprising examples of this would be Klug, since his Insufferable Genius personality plays off well with essentially most of the Fever cast, be it ditzy Amitie (she likes to tease him), Raffina (they're always bickering), Sig (usually involving their mutual connection with Possessed Klug), Possessed Klug himself, Lemres (who he obsessively admires), Feli (like Raffina, they bicker a lot, but mostly because of Lemres) and even young innocent Lidelle. And we're only talking about the Fever characters here...
Les Yay:
- Witch towards Arle, grabbing hold of her even in her sleep and uttering the following line in SUN. It's even more pronounced in Tottemo! Puyo Puyo, where at one moment Witch tries to drug her tea to get closer to her.
  Witch: I love you so very much!
  Arle: Where are you touching me?! Stop!!
- And Ms. Accord for Rulue in 15th Anniversary. She straight-up admits Rulue is quite attractive after meeting her.
  Ms. Accord: She's very sexy and quite wonderful.
LGBT Fanbase: A sizable number of queer fans have found gay/lesbian Puyo Puyo pairings they enjoy and have come up with all sorts of headcanons about the characters' sexualities and gender identities.
Memetic Badass: Arle. She has beaten up an Owlbear in Madou Monogatari A when she was only 4 years old, climbed up a monster infested tower and successfully beats Mamono/Fudoushi to pass her exam at only 6 years old in Madou Monogatari 1, rips out (not opens) doors and chucks them into space in Puyo Puyo BOX, she battles against Satan himself on a daily basis, can easily beat dozens of opponents and in some cases even mocks them, has a lot of powerful cards in Quest, and all this while still being adorable.
Memetic Loser:
- Dark Prince is already a Butt-Monkey in canon due to his failures to marry Arle and his Manchild tendencies, but the fanbase likes to exaggerate it to the point where he's a complete embarrassment to society. In particular, his Onesie Prince and SUN personas tend to be widely mocked in the community.
- Ever since her return to the series via Puyo Puyo 7, Draco has gotten this a lot as well, thanks to her pathetic AI and ditzy characterization.
- While not usually an example of this, Raffina quickly becomes the subject of laughs and jokes at her expense whenever the subject of her damage animation introduced and kept since 15th Anniversary is brought up, thanks to how much more distinct and humiliating it is compared to everyone else's animations. It's infamous enough to spawn a fic dedicated to making fun of it.
Memetic Molester: Schezo gets this reaction, mainly because he really doesn't understand how his statements could be taken the wrong way.
Memetic Mutation: Now has it's own page.
Memetic Psychopath: Ringo as Poison Ringo is characterized as a psycho out to poison people, sometimes for money. Not helped by her Evil Laugh alternate voice in the Japanese version of Puyo Tetris.
Moe:
- Lidelle is a very gentle and sweet girl. So much so it'll make you feel bad for curb-stomping her in Puyo.
- Nekomimi Schezo of all people is this. Stick cat ears on Schezo, and you have a Dark Wizard who actively denies how much he enjoys wearing them, and has his power boosted the more he feels embarrassed. He even has a perpetual blush at his ★5-7 card ranks!
- Marle, when no longer corrupted, is cute as a button and is a sweetheart that loves to have fun.
- Serilly is a shy and precious mermaid that you'd want to protect at all costs.
More Popular Replacement: Sig is this to Tartar to a heavy degree, not only overshadowing his predecessor in Accord's class right out of the gate, but even going on to become arguably the most beloved character to come out of the Fever duology.
More Popular Spin-Off:
- Puyo Puyo is much more popular than its predecessor Madou Monogatari, which didn't even have its own page on this wiki until 2021. Part of the reason may be due to a number of the Madou Monogatari games being limited to Japanese computers^note. This has gone to the point where Madou Monogatari: Big Kindergarten Kids was advertised as a "Puyo Puyo RPG".
Most Wonderful Sound:
- The jingle of an All Clear! is one satisfying sound...because you get to send an extra juicy serving of Nuisance Puyo to your opponent!
- The jingle that plays whenever you win a set in the Sega games, especially after an intense round.
- From 15th Anniversary onward, the characters have a special line if you successfully counter your opponent's chain. If it's your character, congratulations, you've turned the tables and now you're the one on the offense!
- When playing as Tetris in Puyo Puyo Tetris, there's the epic sound you get once you score any kind of back-to-back. There's also the pleasant *Click!* sound when you correctly execute a T-Spin.
My Real Daddy: Either Masamitsu Niitani of Compile or Mizuki Hosoyamada of Sega, depending on which side of the Compile-Sega fracture you sit on. Niitani's role in the creation of the series was relatively minimal, while Hosoyamada didn't play a major role until 15th. Both are more recognized than Kazunari Yonemitsu, the man who actually developed the game.
- For Scenario Writers, there are Kenji Oda, who wrote Saturn Madou Monogatari, Shin Madou Monogatari and inspired the writer of Arle's Adventure and Pocket Puyo Puyo~n to coin Doppelganger Arle's infamous unused backstory, and Utako Yoshino, who wrote Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary, Puyo Puyo Tetris, Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, all of the Audio Adaptation and all Puyo Novels released in the Sega era. Which of the two is given more credit for the amount of lore the series has amassed generally depends on which of the two novel series (Shin Madou or Sega Puyo) one prefers, especially seeing how the scenario writer for Puyo Puyo Fever 2, the game responsible for a bulk of the Sega-era lore has gone uncredited to this day.

Tropes N to Z

Narm: The voice acting occasionally dips into this, though in certain cases some find it charming.
- The voice acting in the English arcade game. You can almost taste the indifference in "Silvana's" voice, while the rest of the cast is hammier than their Japanese counterparts. In all fairness, the Japanese version has its own share of off-putting weirdness (like Schezo's squeaky Areiado and Zombie's baby-like "Ugeeee"), just none as omnipresent as Silvana's Dull Surprise.
- Sun's voice work wasn't terrible, but it is obvious that there weren't many professional voice actors on board. Some of the worst examples were recast between the arcade-perfect Saturn port and the later N64/PSX/PC ports.
Never Live It Down:
- Cranky Food Friends, to the point where it has hit minor Memetic Mutation among SEGA and Puyo Puyo fans that any localized Puyo Puyo game will have all the characters replaced with grouchy food.
- Former Sega producer Toshihiro Nagoshi (known for heading the Yakuza series) became a big target from the Puyo fandom after he gave out a rather unfortunate declaration that mocked the series' Japanese esports players in a livestream. Not even the subsequent apology from Sega as well as himself have managed to alleviate this.
Newer Than They Think: The first Sega game to have 24 playable characters is 20th Anniversary, meaning that the 24 character "limit" has only been a thing since the 2010s. It is often treated as if it has been around for the entirety of Sega's run.
Nightmare Fuel: Would you believe it has its own page?
Older Than They Think:
- Sega was heavily involved with Puyo Puyo long before Minna de Puyo Puyo, much less Compile's collapse. Sega and Compile had a working relationship since the SG-1000 days. Sega did far more than just publish the first arcade game, having a hand in programming the CPU opponents, providing code of Columns for Compile to reference, and even suggesting the visual garbage tray to Compile. In addition, Sega published every Game Gear game in the Puyo Puyo and Madou Monogatari series except Puyo Puyo Tsu and Madou Monogatari A. In 1998, Sega made one of the more unusual purchases of an intellectual property that you'll find in the gaming industry in an attempt to save Compile, giving the latter company free reign to continue to do what they want with the series (up to and including putting games out for Sega's competitors) while only using the license themselves to commission Neo Geo Pocket Color and Wonderswan ports of Puyo Puyo Tsu. Compile was unable to generate enough money to buy the series back, which is why Sega still has the rights to Puyo Puyo to this day.
- Due to the obscure nature of Discstation games (and the Madou Monogatari games in general, for that matter), many characters that are introduced in them are much more recognized by their first Puyo Puyo appearance. The major example is Sun: Ragnus is the only character out of the five "newcomers" that actually debuted in the game, and even he debuted in a Madou Monogatari novel; the rest come from Daimadou, Strange Story, and/or the Game Gear version of Madou Monogatari III.
- Arle getting warped into another world didn't start in Fever. The plot idea predates back to a Discstation game titled Arle's Travel Log (part 1, part 2, and part 3), a text adventure. It all began with Dark Prince wanting his pet Carbuncle back after Arle effectively "adopted" him, a magic duel breaking out in dispute. With Carbuncle pitching in, however, it causes the Dark Prince to relent in alarm, warning the duo to stop to no avail. With Arle refusing to heed the warning, the clashing spells causes a rip in space-time throwing the trio into historic Japan, with the historic figures using Compile characters as stand-ins.
- Witch not having a name is often attributed to Sega's era, but was actually introduced in Madou Monogatari: Tower of the Magician, with the explanation that witches who have yet to pass their examinations are only referred to as "Witch".
- The first game to give the vast majority of the cast their own story is Haro no Puyo Puyo, beating 15th Anniversary by more than a year. (Haro no Puyo Puyo also has multiple possible scenes per stage in each story, which has yet to be done in a proper Puyo game.)
- 15th is commonly attributed with the introduction of alternate Puyo skins. The ability to change Puyo skins is as old as the series itself, with the Human set included in the 8-bit Puyo Puyo. Sun also gives the option to change the contrast of the Puyo with 5 presets in the settings.
- Being a (sometimes) small, yellow creature with long ears that is the main character's companion, Carbuncle has been compared to Pikachu by western fans, with them usually unaware that Carbuncle precedes Pikachu by around 6 years.
One-Scene Wonder: Gogotte enjoys a decent following in the Japanese fandom, despite being a minor opponent who only shows up in Fever 2.
One True Pairing: Amitie/Sig is the closest the fandom has to one. While there are other Amitie ships, Amitie/Sig is the Amitie pairing (and arguably the most popular ship in the fandom period), due to fans loving their dynamic and the Ship Tease between them in canon. The fandom's adoration of Amitie/Sig is so large that it gotten to where other Amitie ships tend to receive backlash from more extreme shippers just because she isn't with Sig.
One True Threesome: Considering the amount of shipping present in the fandom, it's unsurprising that there would be plenty of these out there.
- Amitie/Sig/Arle is one example, both due to the already existing friendships between the three and the surprising amount of things they have in common. This includes Arle and Amitie's very similar spell themes and both Arle and Sig being stuck in their respective Arle/Dark Prince/Rulue and Sig/Oniko/Onion Pixie love triangles, that neither of the two wants any part of.
- Some people just go straight for Schezo/Arle/Dark Prince in order to avoid the shipping wars. Others may even include Rulue while at it, since she has fun dynamics with all 3.
- Plenty of Japanese fans like to add Ecolo to Ringo/Maguro, even though Ecolo is shown to dislike Maguro.
- Related to the above, after the release of Tetris, Tee/Ringo/Maguro became a fairly popular ship.
- Amitie/Sig/Klug has been decently popular as of late, mostly thanks to their respective 20th alternate costumes all receiving hinting in supplementary material and even in the games that seems to be linking them together lore-wise. (Sig and Klug obviously being connected by the demon of the the Record of Sealing, and Amitie's hat and Red Amitie alt apparently playing into it as some sort of unknown power that can sense the demon and which the demon, in turn, is interested in.)
Overshadowed by Controversy: Not the series proper, but a fangame titled "Magical Stone". It was a free to download and play arcade-perfect clone of Tsu, with the intention of bringing the gameplay into eSports territory. The game itself sat in the legal gray area, because it was essentially an unlicensed recreation. Once it was discovered that it was funded with money from Real Money Trade, (a.k.a. dirty money), drama broke out and a snowball effect of dwindling support struck. The short-lived attempt to get it greenlit on Steam was pulled overnight, several top Puyo players that supported the fangame went on hiatus, and development came to a grinding halt, completely fading into memory. Before Puyo Tetris paved the way overseas, western players didn't mind the shadiness and saw it as an accessible alternative. Japan, however, is frigid about it, to the point that the trailer for the game having an overwhelming dislike ratio. Ironically, Puyo Puyo did eventually become a sanctioned eSports title, but through eSports/Champions.
Polished Port: Puyo Puyo CD for the PC-Engine CD includes full voice acting for cutscenes involving familiar voice talent from the industry at the time, extended cutscenes on the hardest difficulty, and higher quality music thanks to the CD formatting. It's also notably the only port that fixes Rulue's lack of voice clip. Puyo Puyo on the PC-98 is also worth a mention, due to the higher resolution sprites and the addition of a Mission Mode.
Pop-Culture Isolation: Puyo Puyo gets a large amount of recognition for making competitive gameplay and casts of interesting characters a focus for puzzle games...in Japan. Elsewhere, it spent roughly two decades being a super-obscure trivia note for Sonic fans, and even after Puyo Puyo Tetris released it's still likely to be known as "that blob game that crossed over with Tetris on the Switch".
Porting Disaster:
- Puyo Puyo for the Game Boy is the most prominent example, generally being considered one of the worst games in the entire series. This port, farmed out to Winkysoft of early Super Robot Wars fame, is an agonizingly slow, terrible-controlling mess that is essentially unplayable on anything except a Super Game Boy due to lack of color differentiation. (Which, of course, defeats the point of porting it to a handheld in the first place.) It looks even worse next to the Compile-developed Pocket Puyo Puyo Tsu, which manages to be infinitely more playable even in monochrome.
- If you count the N-Gage Puyo Pop as a port of the first arcade game (some do, others don't), it belongs here. The gameplay is only slightly better than the aforementioned Game Boy port, only it replaces totally unreadable graphics with painfully-basic MIDI music, truly awful sound effects, and inexplicable ugly recolors of the first arcade game's character portraits. Yes, the N-Gage was a glorified early-2000s cell phone, but surely Sega could've done better than this.
Portmanteau Couple Name: Borrowed from Japanese fan terminology and used quite frequently. The fandom have taken to using "SigAmi" to refer to Amitie x Sig, "ScheArl" for Schezo x Arle, "MaguRin" for Maguro x Ringo, just to name a few pairs.
The Problem with Licensed Games: Haro no Puyo Puyo is an interesting twist. It's not a bad game on its own merits (aside from the game's audio, especially the cringe-inducing chirp associated with moving pieces), but plays notably worse than the other Game Boy Advance Puyo games. It forces five colors like the first arcade game, the controls are stiff, and the entire game feels laggy.
Questionable Casting:
- Kaori Nazuka as Draco elicits this reaction among the English fanbase, with an incredibly high-pitched voice that is much different than any other incarnation. You know it's bad when Ayame Kizuki, whose main job appears to have been designing instruction booklets and game packages, has a better-received portrayal than a professional voice actress. Though in fairness to Nazuka, her Draco is arguably a better fit for Draco's characterization in the Sega games.
- This was also the initial reaction to English Sig and Klug, given the very different takes on the respective characters. Over time, players have warmed up to Sig's voice acting, while Klug is much more love-or-hate it.
- This was also the case with Possessed Klug's English voice in Tetris 2, with many noting that, while menacing, it was simply too deep and manly to be coming from what's basically a teenage boy, Demonic Possession be damned.
Quirky Work: You fight such characters as a dancing fish man, an effeminate skeleton, a half-demon boy who has an obsession with bugs, and Satan himself by eliminating cute little blobs on a puzzle screen. That isn't even getting into many moments within the games that aren't even explainable by context (for example, Schezo having a wedding cake all for himself in a cave in a cutscene in 20th Anniversary when Lemres notices the cake. Why Schezo is in a cave with a cake and why it's a wedding cake are never explained). Very Japanese games indeed.
Replacement Scrappy:
- There's a portion of longtime compile fans who despise Amitie for taking away the protagonist role from Arle and Carbuncle, the original protagonists of the series, even though the latter two never disappeared and remain as co-protagonists alongside Amitie (and Ringo). Even Yuji Naka has noticed this to an extent, as during location tests and an arcade tournament for Fever, he noticed that most players would stick with Arle and her more traditional style instead of trying out Amitie, much to his disappointment. Fortunately for her, fans would warm up to her over time.
- Some older fans initially disliked the Fever cast as a whole, viewing many of them as unnecessary and inferior replacements of Compile's cast, which is likely what prompted Sega to bring most of them back in 15th Anniversary. That said, fans would come around to them over time, especially since Sega would end up demoting most of the Fever cast to increasingly minor roles, causing many fans to miss them. However, it isn't uncommon for fans to bicker over who is better.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
- More like rescued from Americans Hate Tingle, but Rafisol initially caught a lot of heat from western fans, who were disappointed to learn that the final character of Chronicle was an Ally doppelganger, rather than a returning fan favorite villain or something newer, which caused many to decry her as a uninspired Evil Knockoff. This lead a dedicated fan of the character to post a comprehensive write-down of information on Rafisol, allowing fans not versed in Japanese, to learn that she is actually a surprisingly developed character, who pulls a Heel–Face Turn and is conflicted between craving love, while feeling she doesn't deserve it, due to her being a creation of dark magic. This shifted the western view on Rafisol completely, with some now even citing her as a big example of how well SEGA can do with their writing, to the point that she's arguably more well-liked than Ally herself.
- Somewhat downplayed with Tartar. While not entirely free from scrappydom, he does have a following that mostly came to light in the late 2010's, compared to rarely being liked in the 2000's to early 10's.
Retroactive Recognition: An in-series example: Before voicing Squares in Tetris 2, Makoto Sahara provided voice clips for Quest twice, as Claes and Draude III. Surprisingly, all of these events occurred within 2020 (the addition of voice clips for Claes, along with the rest of Heavy Infantry Series was in June, then the Western Monster Series, including Draude III, received one in August, and finally, Tetris 2 being released in December).
Ron the Death Eater:
- Arle herself may get this from people who would rather ship Schezo or Dark Prince with other characters (or even each other), in which case she becomes far meaner.
- Feli tends to become far more of a Jerkass in fanfic than usual, if only as an excuse for Lemres to ditch her.
The Scrappy: Both Puyo Puyo Fever and its sequel have Hoho and the Frankensteins, two very unpopular characters that are hated for their obnoxious Verbal Tic and unappealing designs. As a result, after Puyo Puyo Fever 2 those characters were quickly Put on a Bus, and even when they returned in Puyo Puyo Quest their presence is heavily downplayed. Tartar can fall into this too, but he gets off better than the above two and has a small fanbase of his own (see They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character below).
Scrappy Mechanic: Perhaps this will give the Complacent Gaming Syndrome entry a little perspective...
- The first Nazo Puyo title on the Game Gear does not give you a hard number on how many pieces you have remaining to solve a puzzle. Instead the game gives you the few pieces that are actually relevant to the puzzle, and then endlessly dumps "dummy" pieces. Since the Nazo Puyo games in general invoke Guide Dang It!, it's very easy to get confused on what pieces are related to the puzzle until it's too late. Thankfully this problem is fixed in future Nazo Puyo titles, where it's made obvious on how many pieces the player has to use.
- The general Fever mechanic. In theory it's a Comeback Mechanic that helps players get out of a tight spot, but in practice it often causes both players to enter Fever and cause a long drawn out stalemate, until RNG forces a player to lose. SEGA might of been aware of how annoying these stalemates end up being, since in 20th the Fever mechanic received several changes that nerf how effective it is.
Sequel Difficulty Drop:
- Fever 2's WakuWaku course has 6 stages instead of 8, and Possessed Klug is noticeably easier to beat than Popoi, the original HaraHara boss.
- Rulue no Roux, as Nintendo Hard as it is, actually has a difficulty curve. That's more than can be said for Arle no Roux, which skips most of the basic puzzles typically seen at the start of Nazo Puyo games and instead opens with challenges like testing your ability to navigate a block maze.
- The Puyo AI in Puyo Puyo Tetris (outside of Core AI mode) is a notable downgrade from 20th's AI, likely due to the fact that a Tetris player can easily hamper the long Puyo chains that 20th's higher-leveled AI can perform.
Sequel Displacement:
- When people talk about the "first" Puyo Puyo game, they are almost always referring to the arcade game instead of its MSX/FDS predecessor. In fact, several outlets (including the official 25th Anniversary Book) treat the 8-bit games and the arcade game as a single entity and Sega has referred to it as a "prototype" in at least one interview.
- As far as most people are concerned, the first English, non-Dolled-Up Installment entry is the GBA Puyo Pop. Nobody talks about the NGPC Puyo Pop, and those that do remember the English arcade game question its legitimacy.
Shipping: One might be caught off guard by how developed of a shipping fandom Puyo has, with pairings that cover everything from existing relationships, to countless pairings between characters who never even met in canon. Arguably borders on Shipping Goggles at times, though it should be said that most relationships in the series tend to be static and not particularly deeply explored, which gives fans a lot of room to play around with.
Ship Mates:
- Adding to the above, there are plenty of combinations fans ship the characters in. Many Arle x Schezo fans will also ship Dark Prince x Rulue and Witch x Ragnus or Witch x Draco, for instance, while many Schezo x Witch fans instead ship Arle and Dark Prince or Arle and Ragnus together, just to name a few.
- While it isn't as common to see, some fans of Ringo/Tee will pair Marguro with Ess. It helps that the two ships do get a fair amount of Ship Tease in both Tetris games.
Ship-to-Ship Combat: Hoo boy...
- An obvious example of this would be the one that is sorta reflected in-universe as well (Arle/Schezo vs. Arle/Dark Prince). The Dark Mage and Prince are known to start obnoxious Cock Fights over Arle. The fans aren't that different...
  - That's not even getting into the third camp of fans that find both ships creepy and would rather ship Arle with anyone else, as well as being against any ship featuring either character for similar reasons.
- Arle/Schezo and Schezo/Witch fans are also known to dislike each other's ships. The very unambiguous Ship Tease for the latter only adds more fuel to the fire.
- Ringo/Maguro fans do not like either Tee or Ess. And the less said about Ecolo, the better.
- While many fans are happy to ship Sig with multiple characters, thanks to him being such a popular ship launcher, Amitie/Sig and Sig/Klug fans can get hostile with those that ship Sig with someone outside of their preferred pairing.
Ships That Pass in the Night: With how much the series focuses on how character play off of each other it's not surprising that countless ships of this sort frequently come up in the fanbase. Some examples include Sig/Chico, Serilly/Rafisol, Dark Prince/Possessed Klug and the surprisingly popular Ragnus/Witch.
- Doppelganger Arle in particular attracts these a lot, being a well loved character that lacks any proper on-screen interactions with anyone besides Arle and yet is still a popular candidate for shipping.
Surprise Difficulty: Puyo Puyo has an impossibly-cute cast of characters, as well as an emphasis on chaining and general long-term planning that is arguably not approached by any other puzzle game. Many newcomers got a rude awakening when they played Puyo Puyo Tetris and were met with Puyo's unusually massive learning curve, causing them to stick to Tetris whenever possible.
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Fever 2 is considered much better than its predecessor, which was a Retool that had the whole Compile era's shoes to fill, so it was contested from the start. The writing, presentation and worldbuilding were vastly improved, the campaign was much expanded upon and characters like Sig, Lemres and Feli became popular enough to become series mainstays.
Suspiciously Similar Song: "Theme of Puyo Puyo" is similar to the chorus of "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" by Brian Hyland, with the instrumentation of Yellow Magic Orchestra's "La Femme Chinoise".
Tainted by the Preview: Every new announcement for Puzzle Pop seems to result in a complaint from fans of the series.
- The excitement people had for its announcement went sour when it was revealed to be an Apple Arcade exclusive.
- Not only is the 24 Playable Character limit still in place, they're not even all fully available at launch as there will only be 9 characters at the start with the rest being revealed in a live service-style update system. This curiously means that even those revealed in the trailers and promotional pictures like Sig or Draco are not going to be playable, and even more baffling, not a single full ARS trio will be immediately available on the base roster, with Arle missing Schezo AND Rulue, Amitie and Raffina missing the aforementioned Sig, and Ringo and Maguro missing Risukuma.
- The unlock system is a lot more draconic compared to the previous Anniversary titles, as while everyone has their own story mode, they have to be completed start to end before those characters can be used in any game mode, including Free Play.
That One Rule: The unspoken limit of 24 fully-playable characters, starting with Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary and continuing through the other 2010s Puyo Puyo games, is far less cute to the fandom than it apparently is to the developers. Puyo Puyo Champions is the most extreme case of this trope upsetting the fanbase, as it trims what the fandom considers major characters in Ecolo and the Klug-Lemres-Feli triangle in order to hit 24 characters. However, Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 lacks this rule, as it had 28 characters at launched and ended with 40 when DLC packs stopped being released.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- Sega's Retool and Soft Reboot in its entirely receives this from a small number of fans, with said fans believing that the soul of the series was lost when Sega turned the cuteness up to eleven.
- The Fever cast, aside from Amitie, falling increasingly Out of Focus is a sore subject for Fever era fans. This is not helped by a unfortunate combination of unresolved plot points, Sig and Raffina losing their positions as main protagonists and everyone else either vanishing from the franchise with the sole exception of Quest or having their playable status frequently sacrificed, to make room for more returning Compile characters or new additions to the cast.
- A truly bizarre (and, for much of the fandom, extremely frustrating) variation where those who played Puyo Puyo Tetris are upset that Puyo Puyo Champions does not feature Tetris in any fashion.
- The western fandom was generally receptive to Sega America's name changes (aside from Dark Prince) until the icon list in Champions revealed the "official" English names for the vast majority of the cast. This includes the likes of "Dapper Bones", "Ragnus", "Possessed Klug", "Alter Ecolo", and especially "Demiserf", which rubbed the fanbase the wrong way. This has lead some to mix-and-match which official names they accept and which ones they reject, similar to how Dark Prince is treated by many of the pre-Tetris fans; this includes Puyo Nexus wiki, which has yet to take an "official" stance on the matter and currently uses a mix of of pre- and post-Champions names.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The series' large cast means that often times characters will appear for a few games then disappear with no fanfare, but below are some notable cases:
- After her well received appearance in Yo~n, Doppelganger Arle was relegated to the Rally Mode of BOX and a rather downplayed appearance in Quest, leaving her character largely unexplored and without any real resolution.
- Chico from the same game suffers from a similar problem. Arguably, her case is even more conspicuous than Doppelganger Arle's since supplementary material goes into a lot of detail over her daily life.
- Dapper Bones is shown to have a desire to find his long lost lover, along with hints of resentment caused by past events. 15th implies that whoever Dapper's lover was, they shared a resemblance to Dark Prince. However none of this would be resolved, as he would be absent from the series from 7 onward.
- Possessed Klug has a connection between him and Sig due to the "bad" and "neutral" sides of the original demon being split apart, along with details about his past in general, such as how he got sealed up in the first place. However all this is only brought up in Fever 2, with Possessed Klug only making the odd cameo in future games, and even in Fever 2 his presence is rather anticlimactic.
- Tartar has developed a small following over the years that considers him to be this. His often stated friendship with Lidelle did have a lot of potential for a heartwarming dynamic, but the two would not get to interact at all until Quest, with both Fever games instead playing up his crush on Raffina and giving him little else to do.
- Any character that remained exclusive to Madou Monogatari falls under this as well, especially ones connected to backstory threads such as Rune Lord, Dark Matter, and The Count or ones that could have fit in just fine as recurring characters in Puyo Puyo like Camus, Lala and even Wish (Witch’s grandmother). SEGA not owning Madou Monogatari makes their situation even worse, as it makes even a small appearance in Quest very unlikely to ever happen, making them a case of Exiled from Continuity. (Making things worse still is that Sorcery Saga didn’t feature any of these characters either)
- Somewhere between this trope and the next is a general desire by some fans to have the cast (particularly from Sega's end of the series, but also sometimes extends to the returning Compile-created characters) featured in a more structured plot that allows for Character Development and the fleshing out of their personalities, instead of simply using them in largely slapstick-driven Excuse Plots.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- Due to Sega acquiring the rights to the Compile-created Puyo Puyo characters, and not the Madou Monogatari universe said characters originated from, any and all backstories for the original Compile-created characters as well as the very world they all hail from appear to have been dropped from the series' canon, requiring plot contrivances to explain the characters' presence in every game ever since Arle and Carbuncle's appearance in Fever. Interestingly, some Puyo Puyo games developed by SEGA have featured the occasional reference to plot points and overall concepts pertaining to Compile's take on Puyo Puyo and even Madou Monogatari, such as Dark Prince offhandedly mentioning his tenure as a Magic School headmaster, Witch's grandmother Wish and the magical exam Witch must take to be granted a name, among many other nods.
- Most of the backstory and plot elements of the Fever era haven't been explored much, if at all, for a long time, due to the series shifting its focus away from Primp and its inhabitants starting with Puyo Puyo 7.
  - Ms. Accord's puppet Popoi was implied to be a powerful demon, perhaps even being that of Primp's incarnation of the Dark Prince. Any references to this were promptly dropped after Fever.
  - Possessed Klug's desire to return to his original body has occasionally been brought up in later games, but never returned as a serious plot point after Fever 2.
Tough Act to Follow:
- In terms of gameplay rules, Tsu rule has been the competitive standard for 20 years. Fever is the only other ruleset that gets any sort of attention, and even then it's nowhere near as much as Tsu rule.
- In terms of overall game packages, the "lighter", more experimental games (7, Tetris) are inevitably compared to the feature-packed Anniversary titles.
- Fever 2 is the gold standard for fans who are especially invested in the writing and story aspect of the series, since no other game in the Puyo sub-series has ever had the same extensive lore, elaborations on character backgrounds and worldbuilding that Fever 2 provided in its story and unlockable extras.
- For a time, some fans argued that Chronicle flips this trope on its head, claiming that the game was flawed and only seen as a good entry due to the massive Casual-Competitive Conflict surrounding Tetris. This cooled off over time, especially with Champions being an even more divisive game.
Toy Ship: Panotty/Archan has a cult following, enough so that them being close friends is a popular piece of Fanon even among those who don't necessarily ship them.
Unexpected Character:
- Zoh Daimaoh and Nasu Grave appearing in 15th Anniversary, especially considering that it took the next game^notePuyo Puyo 7 to bring Draco back into the fold and the game after that^note20th Anniversary to bring back Witch.
- The inclusion of Quest characters in Puyo Puyo Champions caught the entire fanbase off guard.
- None of the above however can hold a candle to Sonic the Hedgehog appearing as a Guest Fighter in Tetris 2, catching many fans off guard^note.
Unpopular Popular Character:
- Schezo is disliked and mocked by most characters in-universe, with Arle in particular being not at all afraid to rip into him. Fans on the other hand adore him, to the point where fan works frequently portray his relationships with the cast as more amiable then they ever were in the games, as a means to downplay his Butt-Monkey status, at least a little bit. Sure enough, four years after Arle took the third crown in the Puyo Quest popularity poll, Schezo becomes the fourth character to have the crown.
- The fandom loves Klug, in spite of his very arrogant and confrontational attitude towards most people he meets. Raffina even claims he has no friends in an official 4-koma.
Viewer Gender Confusion:
- All About Puyo Puyo Tsu reveals that Baromett is actually a male, contrary to his general appearance and voice.
- Ocean Prince's human form looks like this◊. Despite the heavy emphasis on pink colors, he's male.
- Dapper Bones. While not as often as other characters, his effeminate mannerisms, attraction to male characters, and usage of feminine Japanese speech have led some fans to initially believe he was female, despite Fever 2 officially listing him as male. This confusion seems to happen more often amongst Japanese fans.
- Respectively, Jay and Elle. Probably intentional, as even their website info questions which one is which.
Woolseyism
- While Minna de Puyo has been localized as Puyo Pop, the original Japanese game curiously has a built-in English setting, with the script entirely in English. The US dialogue has a bit more liberal translations as opposed to the more faithful JP version, but there are a couple of gems that awesomely showed off Arle's Deadpan Snarker side. The incredibly memorable "Octagon as in 'stop'." being one of them.
  - The JP version:
  Incubus: Hi, honey. Where are you off to?
  Arle: Whatever... talk about your stuck-up smartalecks.
  Incubus: Oh darling, even your troubled face is cute in my eyes.
  Arle: Jeez... And fifty other lines to get you nowhere.
  Incubus: You poor baby... Here let me, beautiful me, warm you up.
  Arle: Stop it!
  - The US version:
  Incubus: Hey, baby. Come here often?
  Arle: ...Go away.
  Incubus: Hey! I just want to get to know you! What's your sign, baby?
  Arle: Octagon. As in "stop."
  Incubus: Oooh, I like a girl with a sense of humor! Let's make jokes together...
  Arle: That does it.
- The game's song titles for the official OST releases on iTunes, Google Play Music, Amazon Music, etc. were subject to this, even if a handful of the titles were already in English. To name one, Suketoudara's theme, originally titled "Suspicious Dance Shoes", was renamed to "Fishy Dance Shoes", keeping the same meaning but throwing in a fish pun at the same time.

YMMV / Puyo Puyo

Edit Locked

Games with their own YMMV subpages:

YMMV tropes for other series installments, and the franchise as a whole: