YMMV / Puyo Puyo Tetris

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Tee's line to Lemres after learning what cake is.
    Tee: We don't have a lot of squishy things back in my world.
  • One of Lemres' spells in the English Puyo Puyo Tetris is "Cream Pies". Innocent enough at face value, being a dessert, but considering this is in the same game Schezo is in...
• Broken Base:
  • Puyo Puyo Tetris was seen as something of a Contested Sequel before the localization was announced. The fandom collectively put the debates aside to celebrate the first English-language Puyo Puyo release in more than a decade, but it wouldn't be long before the familiar criticisms resurfaced. The primary issues raised by more seasoned Puyo fans are that fundamental differences between the two puzzle games make the Puyo vs Tetris matchup an exercise in frustration, as well as the fact that Puyo Tetris has a fraction of the modes of 20th (with most of the rulesets that it does include being of dubious quality).
  • The game initially getting an English dub but no dual audio option, invoking Subbing Versus Dubbing debates. On one side of the argument, people were open to the idea of characters finally getting an English voice and are curious to how they will be interpreted, while the other side didn't like the changes made and thought the Japanese voice acting was better. Then there was the third crowd that didn't care about either argument and were just happy that Puyo Puyo was getting another chance at capturing a western crowd in the first place. This has been somewhat alleviated by the Steam version gaining dual audio.
  • A specific mention goes to Sig's dubbed voice. In the Japanese version, he has a voice actress that gives him a youthful voice, while in the English dub, he's instead voiced by a male that gives him an awkward voice like he's going through puberty. Some people think it makes sense since Sig is implied to be in his early teens, while others hate how jarring Sig sounds with a deeper voice. However, an even more polarizing voice choice was Klug's, which gives him a rather loud nerdy voice. Its obnoxious tone put some people off, but it still has fans due to its Narm Charm factor, specifically from his infamous "You challenging me!?" line.
  • The game has also reopened the debate about Satan vs. Dark Prince. Either it's a relic of Puyo Puyo (1992)-era Moral Guardians and should be removed, or it's a close-enough descriptor of a borderline In Name Only rendition of Satan that won't garner any unwanted controversy outside of the fanbase. Certainly not helped by Sonic Runners leaving the name unchanged.
• Common Knowledge: Some claim that Puyo Puyo Tetris wasn't localized for the Xbox One due to the Ubisoft contract...except that it released simultaneously with the PS4 version in Japan, the latter release requiring Loophole Abuse even in its home country. The most likely reason it didn't get localized is because it's a niche Japanese game on a platform not known to be friendly to niche Japanese games.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Good luck trying to find a ranked match for any mode besides basic VS, Swap, or maybe Big Bang.
• Continuity Lockout: The international versions of Puyo Puyo Tetris is a characterization-based example. Sega made next to no effort to properly introduce (and in the case of some characters, re-introduce) the cast to its new Western audience, making certain portions of the game's script feel like a large In-Joke. Possibly the biggest offender is Ringo's "last adventure" line (which possibly referred to the events of 20th, the likes of which has not been localized).
  Ringo: We just got back from our last adventure! DON'T WE GET A BREAK FROM ALL THE PUYO PUYO!?
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The characters exclusive to Tetris are a borderline Germans Love David Hasselhoff case. Since the game itself has a surprising following outside of Japan, this by extension also applies to characters like Tee, O, and Ess.
• Game-Breaker: On higher skill levels, Tetris Versus Mode. It is significantly faster than Puyo thanks to access to Hard Drop^note Puyo can use it, but it's disabled in Puzzle League, the tetrimino randomizer is light-years more reliable than the Puyo pair randomizer, has more preview pieces, can Hold a piece for future use, has infinite ghost rows on the top, and most important of all, can use garbage to its advantage by making line combos. The ridiculous speed in which a good Tetris player can send garbage to a Puyo opponent (especially as a simple setup as a T-Spin can send a whole row) and the ability to downstack to remove garbage (or worse, to send uncounterable attacks to the Puyo player) means that Puyo's much higher garbage output is completely neutralized at every three or four pieces a row of garbage Puyos fall. You are hard-pressed to find many Puyo players at the top of that game's Puzzle League ranking, and for a good reason.
• Gateway Series: In the West, Puyo Puyo Tetris does has its share of players who only ever play Tetris due to being intimidated by Puyo's comparatively complex learning curve, but it did inspire a wave of new Puyo players, with the localization of Champions reinforcing the hype amongst those who want to get more involved with Puyo, especially those sick of getting rolled over by Tetris players in Puyo Tetris.
• Growing the Beard: Localization-wise, Puyo Puyo games have had a history of having shoddy work done on them, with the exception of Puyo Pop on GBA. This includes spelling mistakes, translation oversights, inconsistent names, and lousy voice acting. Puyo Puyo Tetris is a HUGE leap in quality in this regard, even making clever improvements in some areas.
• I Knew It!:
  • Many Puyo Puyo fans called that Sega would localize Puyo Puyo Tetris in hopes of drawing on the strength of the Tetris brand. They didn't call it taking three years and a new console to be released.
  • After learning that "Raffine" was changed to Raffina in the English version, the fandom suspected that "Rider" would be changed as well. Her name was indeed changed to Lidelle.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The Puyo fandom is well aware that most people bought Puyo Puyo Tetris to play the puzzle game that is not named after a slime monster. This phenomenon straddles the line between being a source of nonstop Self-Deprecation humor and being a source of frustration. One news source even stated that its exclusion in Champions was a downside.
• Memetic Mutation: All found on the main Memes page.
• More Popular Spin-Off: Puyo Puyo Tetris is a mixture of this and Germans Love David Hasselhoff. It was originally intended to be a simple crossover, but it has become so popular it has been ported 8 times on multiple handhelds, home consoles, and even computers. It's also easily the most successful Puyo Puyo title sales-wise in western territories, with the Nintendo Switch version alone raking in a million copies globally and the Steam version quickly becoming a top 5 "wish-list" choice.
• Narm Charm:
  • One of the arguments against the English dub of Puyo Puyo Tetris is the fact that it (naturally) loses all of the Asian Speekee Engrish, particularly in the case of Suketoudara.
  • While Klug's Puyo Tetris English voice has mixed reception, a handful of players found his character selection line, "YOU CHALLENGING ME!?", to be oddly endearing.
  • Lemres' English voice. He's already very laid-back sounding in Japanese, but the English dub goes all the way into making him a Surfer Dude, which many consider oddly fitting even if they personally dislike it.
• Never Live It Down: IGN claiming that Tetris is slightly worse than Puyo Puyo in a Puyo vs. Tetris match. To be fair to them, a mediocre Puyo Puyo player can easily flatten beginner and even lower-intermediate Tetris players...it's just that Puyo stands no chance against a player who can fully utilize the speed of Tetris.
• Polished Port: After the initial ports of Tetris, later ports for Xbox One, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC (though this version launched with major issues) included all of the DLC in the game for free, along with minor changes to the music and artwork, and balance changes between Puyo and Tetris.
• Porting Disaster: The PC version was released in a sorry state. While the core gameplay still worked fine (when the game wasn't randomly crashing), the game's audio was bugged in just about every way imaginable, there were graphical glitches, and the game's online was inexplicably region-locked which only served to exacerbate the problems listed under Complacent Gaming Syndrome. Thankfully, these issues were fixed via updates in short order.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Puzzle League has virtually no Puyo/Tetris segregation in Versus play, which leads to a variety of problems, especially those who prefer to play Puyo or at least the same mode as their opponent to ensure an even fight. While the developers have made attempts to balance Puyo and Tetris so that you can just pick whatever you want, Tetris still has an advantage over Puyo, meaning that if you want to dominate the rankings, you pretty much have to pick Tetris. This is fixed in Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, where there are separate leagues for pure Puyo and pure Tetris, alongside mix and match.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Some fans were upset that some returning characters went under new outfits and designs. With Sig, Ringo, Dark Prince and Amitie being the biggest examples.
• That One Boss: Ecolo in Tetris uses the same AI as in 20th (where he is the Final Boss) and is fast and precise with his Tetris play. Upon release many players freaked out online about being unable to beat the blob. Their chagrin intensified when this is immediately followed up by playing against him in Puyo.
• Woolseyism:
  • In the Japanese version, the Tetris characters are directly named after their respective Tetrimino type. The English version meanwhile turns them into a Punny Name by retaining a similar pronunciation, for example J & L in the Japanese version are now referred to as Jay & Elle in the English version.
  • The localizers had quite the task with handling Schezo's botched phrasing. For example, in the very first encounter with him, he utters his catchphrase to Arle as per Running Gag. While it is humorous to a Japanese player, it doesn't exactly translate well to a Western player. The localized version gave us this wonderful blunder.
    • Japanese Version:
    Schezo: I am the Dark Wizard, Schezo!
    Regardless of how many times it's repeated, I am no pervert.
    I...only...want you!
    • English Version:
    Schezo: I am Schezo the dark mage.
    And I demand you stop screaming "creeper" at once!
    I prefer you to scream my name when we're together.
  • Another notable change with the dialogue in Puyo Puyo Tetris is how sounds are handled. Instead of simply writing out stuff like "Ahhh" or "Hahaha", the dialogue describes the sounds in a literal fashion, causing some rather◊ hilarious◊ descriptions◊.

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