What Could Have Been / Puyo Puyo

Early concept art of Puyo Puyo 7 depicting Ringo and her friends as magical girls.

Madou Monogatari Chronology

The Madou Monogatari Chronology, contained within the first volume of Shin Madou Monogatari and the Madou Monogatari Fan Book, is essentially a massive collection of unused Canon Welding ideas for the Madou Monogatari and Puyo Puyo series.

• "The Day the Puyo Disappeared", an event on the Chronology that is marked as being a summary of an unreleased game, was originally reserved for Arle no Bouken: Mahou no Jewel. The obscure Game Boy Color RPG was originally going to start a mini-arc where Arle makes an offhand comment about "not wanting to play forever" that inspires Dark Prince to try to undo the age freeze that he enforced on Arle's world. This plotline would have bled into Pocket Puyo Puyo~n and Puyo Puyo Gaiden: Puyo Wars. Schezo Wegey, among others, would've been aware of the fact that nobody ages. There's no trace of any of this in the final game.
• Pocket Puyo Puyo~n, as mentioned above, would've also been connected to the Chronology. The scenario writer, Kenichi Ina, didn't think that the staff would be receptive to the idea of such a serious story, which lead to this idea being scrapped.
  • Carbuncle would have been kidnapped by the Dark Prince in order to gain enough power to undo the time freeze.
  • It would have been revealed that the incarnation of Arle Nadja seen in the Puyo Puyo games thus far was only one-half of the incarnation of Arle Nadja seen in Madou Monogatari. Arle's soul - the other half being Doppelganger Arle, would have wandered the void between dimensions for hundreds of years (500 years, to be exact). Upon his initial discovery of Doppelganger Arle's existence, Dark Prince would have arranged for an encounter between the two Arles to resolve the issue of both existing. The Pierrot costume, in addition to concealing Doppelganger Arle's true identity, was also designed to seal her powers; this would have explained why Pierrot does not have access to a Super Attack during Arle's first encounter with her.

Unused Game Modes, Ports and Features

• The 8-bit Puyo Puyo was originally set to be a Disc Station release. According to Niitani, the decision to develop for the Famicom Disk System came because the peripheral was failing and thus Nintendo would be less concerned with the similarities between Puyo Puyo and Dr. Mario. The oldest concept was a domino-stacking game, hence why the 8-bit versions have six colors.
• The 1992 Puyo Puyo, being the first competition-based game in the series, had a variety of unused ideas. A number of these can be seen in the prototype of the Mega Drive port, which has not been dumped but has a showcase video:
  • The prototype contains six Puyo colors. The sixth color (teal, instead of the MSX game's gray Puyo) was Dummied Out, but hackers have discovered that both the first arcade game and Puyo Puyo Tsu are still capable of handling it. The strangest part? It is actually the third color internally.
  • Sega is said to have pushed for Endless Mode to be included in the arcade version, but Endless did badly in location testing, leading to it being relegated to a console-exclusive mode.
  • There are at least two cutscenes intended for the Mega Drive port that didn't make into the final product. The first is a small intro that was implemented in heavily-simplified form into the title screen of the final game; this cutscene is in the prototype, but slows the game's audio to a crawl. The other, only mentioned is interviews, is a cutscene after Witch is defeated that would have used the "Rejection of Puyo Puyo" BGM.
  • The prototype has a high score table for a "Mission Mode", suggesting that a Nazo Puyo mode was planned. Mission Mode was ultimately only implemented in the Game Gear and PC-98 versions.
  • Scenario Mode (as it was named in the prototype, instead of "Hitori de Puyo Puyo") only has the main 13 stages, with no Beginner Mode in sight. Skeleton-T is still in the game though (as seen in the Attract Mode), which possibly suggests that the first 13 characters in the game's internal order^note Skeleton-T, Suketoudara, Zombie, Draco Centauros, Nasu Grave, Witch, Sasoriman, Harpy, Zoh Daimaoh, Schezo Wegey, Minotauros, Rulue, and Dark Prince was the actual single-player order at some point.
• The Mega Drive version of Tsu has assets of a Nazo Puyo Mode that was finished and implemented into a handful of later ports.
• There were several characters considered for the Saturn version of Tsu that didn't make it into the final game: Wraith, Jaan, Siren, Kerogga, Komori Gal, Barbegazi, Tyranno, Gorgon, People Rot, Ghost, and Wizard. Aside from Wraith, Jaan, and Barbegazi, none of these characters ended up appearing in a Puyo Puyo or even Nazo Puyo game. What's more, some of them like Komori Gal and Kerogga would never appear beyond their debut game.
• In a similar vein, Pocket Puyo Puyo~n was originally going to feature every character from the original Puyo Puyo arcade game, Puyo Puyo Tsu, Puyo Puyo Sun, and Puyo Puyo~n, in addition to Doppelganger Schezo, Dark Witch, Black Kikimora, and Veneris and Saturni from Arle no Bouken . Whether by coincidence or in direct response to this idea falling through, Puyo Puyo Box features all but the aforementioned Arle no Bouken characters in its Scramble Mode (Plus a few more in Quest mode).
• Just like its mainline predecessors, Yo~n was originally intended to have an arcade counterpart, but it was scrapped partway through development. That said, the artwork meant for said version was still fully developed and can be found in Compile's Puyo Puyo~n Compile Art Gallery CD-rom.
  • If the aforementioned artwork is of any indication, it would appear that Ragnus, Incubus, Minotauros, Honey Bee, and Momomo (characters who were planned to be playable in all versions of Yo~n, in addition to its Game Boy Color Pocket incarnation) were set to be playable in this arcade version.
    • This can even be taken a step further in the case of Momomo, who ended up being an non-playable character in all finished versions of Yo~n.
• VS. Puyo Puyo Sun on the Mega Drive Mini 2 was originally planned to be a full game, going so far as to have the manzai cutscenes and AI already created. But time restraints prevented the developers at M2 from completing the game, so they simply kept the already implemented 2P mode instead of shelving the entire project.

Unreleased Original Games

• According to an interview in 2017, Current series producer Mizuki Hosoyamada revealed that there were plans for a Puyo fighting game at some unspecified point in time, but the higher-ups at SEGA put a stop to it.
• There was at one point going to be a Puyo Puyo racing game named "Puyo Korogashi", covered in an issue of Saturn Fan magazine. It started development on the 32X, then moved to the Sega Saturn where it was quickly cancelled.
• In a 2020 interview, Mizuki Hosoyamada reveals that there were originally plans for a Puyo Puyo battle royale game in the same vein as Tetris 99, but that various factors would cause them to scrap it.

Miscellaneous

• Carbuncle was originally going to be a baby fox-like creature, rather than a rabbit-like creature.
• An early concept of Ringo originally depicted her as a Magical Girl. She was accompanied by blue and yellow-colored companions to make up a Magical Girl Trio who transformed during Puyo battles, making up the original concept of Puyo 7's ARS. According to a magazine scan, the girls were originally meant to be daughters of different merchants (Ringo being the daughter of a greengrocer, the blue girl was the daughter of a fishmonger, and the yellow girl was the daughter of either a florist or a baker). Ultimately, the Magical Girl idea was left on the drawing board due to Sonic Team wanting to mix things up after feeling there were already enough female characters in the series as was, with the developers making Ringo an otherwise ordinary school girl and reworking the blue and yellow girls into the male Maguro and Risukuma. The Puyo transformation gimmick is a leftover from this idea.
• Puyo Puyo Tetris was supposed to immediately follow Puyo Puyo 7, but unspecified factors caused Sega to scrap the project and release 20th Anniversary instead. And in an example of What Could Have Not Been, the same interview states that Sega was planning to give the series a break after 20th Anniversary but changed their mind when the opportunity to revisit the idea of a Tetris crossover arose.
• According to Compile's former PR manager, Tokuma Shoten (the Japanese publishing company who released the Famicom Disk System Puyo Puyo) had originally approached Compile, pitching that of an full-blown ongoing Puyo Puyo anime series to them shortly after the release of Tsu. However, the president of Compile at the time refused the offer, stating that he would like for all the animation for such a series to be done in-house at Compile. Unfortunately, Compile had little to no resources to take on such a task, resulting in the idea never truly coming to fruition. It should be noted that in 1998, Compile did release a series of shorts based on their various IPs at the time (with Puyo Puyo being among them), most likely being the closest they had ever come to accomplishing that goal. The employee is of the opinion that had Compile taken up Tokuma Shoten's offer, they could have just given them (Tokuma Shoten) the go-ahead to animate the Puyo Puyo anime series for a limited time while they themselves (Compile) kept the series' copyright, and then animated the series themselves later down the line instead of totally turning down the offer outright.
• Compile had ideas for a Puyo Puyo theme park, of all things. It's been heavily suggested that the pursuit of this idea is one of the major factors that led to Compile's downfall.
• According to some concept art for Puyo Puyo Tetris seen in Nintendo Dream Magazine, Zed was originally going to be a human wearing a robotic-looking bodysuit. In addition, he was also going to be Ess' ACTUAL father. These ideas were eventually scrapped.
• According to the Puyo Puyo Artwork Collection book released in 2021, Sega considered leaving Succubus's Dominatrix design untouched before going for the heavily-redesigned version that shows up in Puyo Puyo!! Quest.
• Likewise, some previously unreleased art from the Puyo Puyo Artwork Collection as well as an oddity in the numbering of the Puyo Puyo Novels indicates that there was one volume of the novels that never ended up being released. While that hypothetical book's contents and title are unknown, the unused cover-art features Amitie holding a pot with what appears to be a magical flower. As the novels' writer, however, stated on Twitter that there are, in fact, no unreleased volumes, the true meaning of these oddities can only be debated.
• The Puyo Puyo Artwork Collection also indicates that Tee from Puyo Puyo Tetris was going to have a hoverboard instead of the chakram that appears in the final game.
• Localization-related examples:
  • Puzlow Kids' existence implies that Sega had plans to release ports of the first arcade game in the west mostly intact. There's Wild Mass Guessing about why it didn't release outside of Japan (much of it involving the English arcade game), but no concrete answer. Admittedly, Several fans are thankful that, aside from the name change from Satan to Dark Prince, Puzlow Kids' naming conventions died with it.
  • According to one of the Japanese guidebooks for Tsu, Compile was going to try to get Super Puyo Puyo released overseas before they were approached by Nintendo for Kirby's Avalanche.
  • Current series producer Mizuki Hosoyamada wanted to push for 15th Anniversary (his first game) to be released overseas, but didn't because of concerns about recouping localization costs.