YMMV / Puyo Puyo 7

• Anti-Climax Boss: The final match with Ecolo is a complete joke and barely any more difficult then a match with a regular opponent. It's one of the few battles in the game's story mode to not take place in Transformation so he can't use that to survive, and his AI is unusually slow and bad at chaining. Combine this with being the second final boss to only use 4 colors in his battle (Doppelganger Arle of Yo~n being the first) when most final bosses up to that point used five, and he goes down almost embarrassingly easily.
• Disappointing Last Level: The final showdown with Ecolo in 7 is, for some reason, easier than the episode before that, where he puts up a good fight against Ringo. He could easily have been a harder fight in desperation to fight back against everyone, but his AI is a joke. Not only that, the battle uses Tsu rules which, while not a bad ruleset, rings hollow when considering the stakes at hand.
• Epileptic Trees: When the first two teasers for 7 dropped (under the Working Title Project Ringo), many assumed it was an announcement for a new Sonic game given the world's limited knowledge on the Puyo franchise and the fact that they only showed closeup silhouettes of Ringo's design. It wouldn't be until the third teaser that this started to die down due to the classroom setting.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In this game, Ringo shares the same dropset as Yu & Rei, the two ghost children that made their debut in Fever 1. 20th Anniversary would reveal that Ringo has a crippling fear of ghosts, as shown every time she's forced to interact with them.
• One-Scene Wonder: The Mini and Mega transformations. Transformation might be a Scrappy Mechanic gameplay-wise, but that's not the case art-wise since they are possibly canon depictions of the mostly teenage cast as children and adults respectively, making for easy fanart fodder. Coming up with Mega and Mini forms for characters not featured in 7 is also Fanfic Fuel.
• Scrappy Mechanic: 7s Transformation doesn't get much love, with players claiming that the system is completely busted in terms of balance. Specifically, Mini acts like Fever but even more extreme, while Mega can potentially cause a snowball effect with minimal effort. But the main kicker is that the timer is a lot more lenient, capping at 99 seconds instead of 30 like with the Fever rules, meaning a player can potentially last A LOT longer then a Fever can and by extension inflict a lot more damage.
• So Okay, It's Average: The general opinion on 7 has grown to become this, after healthy amounts of vindication. The game's questionable story and writing quality, sometimes clunky new art, mixed with a overabundance of reused art and lack of competitive potential for Transformation mode are still frequently criticized, but most will agree that the game still plays just fine and is merely nothing special in the grand scheme of the franchise. This is especially visible when comparisons to the far more deeply flawed Yo~n are drawn.
• Tough Act to Follow: 15th set a high bar for the series, and 7 responded with a fraction of the modes, a lack of balance, and spotty aesthetics.
• Vindicated by History: International fans initially had a very vocal dislike for just about every aspect of the game. Over time, the Suzuran cast has gained a following while the game itself is merely seen as a disappointing, but largely playable sequel instead of being a disaster of a puzzle game like some of the series' weakest entries.