The story mode is more in depth than the last game, where in PPT1, you chase down a man messing up your world with Puyo and Tetris, down to the cosmos, all to find out his motivation to do so was because he was depressed and couldn't care. PPT2's story was basically that but toned up more and had more depth into the new characters. While the near-end of the Adventure Mode feels rushed, it's still a decent story, and the new side quests brings more life to the world of Puyo Puyo.

As for the gameplay, it's your typical puzzle game mechanics, Puyo Puyo vs Tetris. The new mode, Skill Battle, is pretty unique to the genre though, since RPG combined with Puzzle is a niche concept. The turnout was OK, though some skills need to be buffed, but I hope SEGA brings back this mode in future Puyo Puyo games.

Online I can't say much, I have never touched online since I don't have Nintendo Switch Online membership, but from what I heard it's been buggy (on launch day atleast), but don't take my word for it.

Overall, Puyo Puyo Tetris, but with more stuff. Worth $40? I don't know, but it's still a fun game and the Adventure mode is worth the time to go through.

I love Tetris but never played Puyo Puyo before. That said the collaboration this title brings between the two does a good job although I guess I mostly wish it had more modes for individual gameplay styles that the respective console versions of Tetris brings. Still worth picking up if you're a fan of both or one of them to experience a new type of puzzle game you never played before. I mostly tried to play the adventure mode but it really wasn't doing it for me at all. I just rather have it be more about the gameplay variety.

This shouldnt work at all, but somehow mixing the two best falling block puzzle games of all time makes for a very compelling thought experiment on the numerous ways humans can fuck everything up in a matter of seconds, be it geometrically or colorfully so.

Wouldnt say this sequel warrants its existence, as the additions to the first game feel far too little or rarely ever game changing, and the adventure mode severely lacks in the charm from previous entries that manages to contextualize the absurdity of the premise of competitive falling blocks with the Puyo Puyo cast banter.

Still, it's Puyo Puyo + Tetris, and the amount of ways the game finds to make you feel like a complete idiot as the screen fills up with your past mistakes while you helplessly and uselessly shift the piece that will bring forth your demise is still a fun existential interactive nightmare.

Also, please bring back the old Puyo Puyo aesthetic, i'm so tired of the Fever one.

Dropping a TL;DR because I rambled way too much when the actual verdict on this game is pretty obvious. It's more Puyo. It's more Tetris. It's more story mode hijinks. Unless you're some uber Tetris tryhard who winces at the idea of slow DAS/ARR and is still @ing the official Puyo Twitter account asking for combo tables to be nerfed, you'll probably enjoy this game to some extent. If you don't know what any of that even means, then there's nothing to worry about. Full thoughts below.

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Hmm. I had about 600+ hours in the first game across all platforms. I say "across all platforms" because I own 3 separate copies of it, and even had the 3DS version pirated to boot (it's Japan-only, okay?!).

It had some clear problems. Unfortunately for our IGN reviewer friend, "the Tetris player is at a slight disadvantage" spread as a meme in the community - one look at the leaderboards disproved that brutally. Many top Puyo players didn't enjoy the hyper-defensive, vertical play necessitated by the frenzied barrage of T-spins and Tetrises they'd encounter every game. There were no filters to matchmake you with only other Puyo players. By contrast, most good Tetris players didn't really care. They just continued playing the crack cocaine, DPS-fiend game of competitive guideline Tetris relatively unfazed.

That's like, stuff only 1% of the playerbase really cares about though. And they ended up getting Puyo Puyo Champions as a stopgap measure to play quick, easy, arcade Tsu-style online Puyo matches on modern consoles. I was good enough at Puyo Puyo Tetris that I enjoyed sinking many hours into it, grinding ranked (there's a good chance you saw my name if you ever checked the top 20 UK leaderboards on any platform). I was scrubby enough at it that the balance issues didn't piss me off like they did many others. It reignited my love for Tetris and it was the entry that forced me to finally get good at Puyo. Now I spam GTR like 90% of the players online because I'm too scared to actually think. But it looks big brain to onlookers. Hooray?

Anyway, onto the game I'm actually meant to be talking about here.

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 didn't need to exist. I'd accepted this back when I was entertaining the idea of this game as a hypothetical way before it was ever announced. But like, you could make a strong argument for every post-Tsu entry not needing to exist. With that thought in mind, and knowing I'd probably just chill out and enjoy the singleplayer and quality-of-life improvements, I bought it day 1 like the whipped consoomer I am. I then proceeded to shelve the game for 10 months after playing half of the story mode. I was just too burned out from the first game, which realy drove home just how much this didn't need to exist. I also wasn't enjoying the changes made to Tetris in a feeble attempt to improve balance (let's make Tetris slower! What do you mean it feels worse to play?) (They also reverted this change in a recent patch, it's the same as PPT1 Tetris speeds now lol. I'll probably play it more just because of this).

It's fine. The story mode starts a bit slow but has its funny moments. And its Schezo moments. A lot of the same assets are reused. And the original was already heavily reusing 20th Anniversary assets. Skill Battles return from Chronicle. They sure are a thing. Oh hey, they added filters to matchmaking so now you can specify if you want to play against Puyo or Tetris! But Puyo Puyo Champions and Tetris Effect already kinda exist by now, and most serious players already left to play those.

Okay, I need to bring up one of the funniest patches I've seen in a game. So somehow, launch PPT2 had a song that just straight up goes horribly off-key. A fixed version was patched in. Hobbyist mashup makers can feel vindicated knowing that actual pros fucked up this badly.
The rest of the music is thankfully not off-key. It's also nothing special really.

The fact this game isn't getting horribly slammed proves just how genius the core Puyo and Tetris gameplay designs are. You can serve them on the same paper plates you served them on 4 years ago and people will eat it up. Seriously, the package itself reeks of phoned-in cash-in. You could've just patched Puyo Tetris 1 to have those filters people have been begging for instead of releasing 2 more asset flips (counting Champions here). There's nothing substantial this offers that the first game doesn't other than those filters and some new characters (thank you for FINALLY ditching that stupid 24 slot tradition). A lot of people probably skipped this and I don't blame them.

But fuck all that I'm still giving this a good rating because you can play as SONIC. That's right. He's supposedly the fastest hedgehog around.

Same game but balanced worse (tetris vs tetris takes forever) Was there a new game mode? If there was I forget and it added nothing. Oh yeah Skill Battle is here from Chronicles, which really did add nothing here. In Puyo Tetris 1 your pre-order bonus was some sick keychains while here it's...these items for this mode I never bothered. Digital preorder bonuses are always worthless but this one doubly so.
Seiyuu are replaced with horrible soundalikes (which if you've read my reviews you know I like Asami Imai's voice and this replica disappointed me), Dub VAs recycle battle lines and whatnot. The first 5 chapters of the story are pure rehash. Even worse if you want completionism you'll have to go through each mission at least twice, because you can't take on the 4 star missions before getting 3 star in every level. And your grade won't be updated if you already met the requirements for 4 star so the game is telling you to shut up and do it all agian.
Ally is shoved in arbitrarily for no real reason, her role in the plot isn't even meaningful they just wanted her in there.
Squares and Marle (Marle getting lost in translation of Maru I feel but naming her Circle is probably sillier) are just okay
Updates broke the 24 curse and added clorblind options for those that need them which is cool and the returning ones are nice but the Quest characters should still stay gone.

Most disappointing game of 2020 and felt like it was only made as a quick cash grab. As a normal game it's like 2.5 stars but for what it represents it gets a 1 star rating. I hope commieblocks stay away from Puyo for a while so we can get a new Puyo game and plot that doesn't just copy its predecessor.

A relatively bare-bones expansion of the first game, that offers precious little in the way of new content. Though the fresh coat of paint is sweet enough on an aesthetic level, slightly increased handling and additional line-clear delay hinder high-speed gameplay — especially when playing against opponents who have the flashy new cut-ins turned off. From a gameplay standpoint, there's not much reason to spring for the sequel unless you're looking to mess around with the janky Skill Battle mode, or you're itching to play as Sonic, for some reason.

A very, very reluctant 3.5 stars. At the end of the day, it's still the ultra-solid gameplay from before, and I'm positive that online play with friends would be a ton of fun, even if the only "new" mode in this game is a complete and total wash-up. However, in terms of story content, it's a very hard sell, especially compared to the first game.

Let's get something out of the way. Puyo Tetris 2's script is decidedly weaker in every aspect. It improves in the second half, but the first half is extremely repetitive in structure, essentially a few hours of characters mulling over this new danger nestled between endless versus battles. The humor is weaker, characters act even more like stereotypes of themselves than before, and any fun, superfluous interactions between characters are relegated to side stages that I didn't care to beat. The game is so dedicated to its paper-thin and groan-worthy plot (it retcons the ending of 1 to have wiped everyone's memories, leading to a lot of "I think I've seen you before") that it forgets to have much fun with itself besides the specifically-descripted action lines, which see so much use here that they lose the hilarious luster they had in the first game.

Oh geez, the stage variety. Like I said, a LOT of versus battles early on, not even breaking the monotony with solo challenges. They're THERE, but they're side missions once again - ALL of the stages required to progress the story are 1-on-1 battles of some sort. Puyo Tetris 2 takes forever to introduce modes that already had prominence early in Puyo Tetris 1, and when it finally seems like there's a healthy variety of modes with some fun banter between characters, the last world goes right back to the versus battles and even kicks you in the nuts with a difficulty spike. Thankfully, skipping stages here still lets you watch the cutscene after the stage, unlike the first game. This is not one to binge in one go unless you want to go crazy.

I keep comparing it to its predecessor because it's otherwise so identical on the surface level that I couldn't imagine wanting a sequel unless it did something spectacular and new with its single-player content. It doesn't, apart from adding an overworld map that ends up adding nothing. I'll also say it right now. Skill Battle fucking BLOWS. Your overall performance doesn't matter because if your opponent has the right powers equippred, and gets their moves in quick enough, you're toast in less than a minute, and the same goes for you as well. In puzzle games reliant on RNG and quick thinking, it creates a sense of a LUCK Battle, instead.

I've complained enough. I do think it's something of a misguided and too-safe production, but it's nonetheless highly competent and easy to pick up and play. If you're a complete newcomer to the Puyo Puyo franchise and can find this on sale, you're still getting a wealth of content for your buck and access to a bustling competitive community. If you've already played Puyo Tetris 1, and assuming that first game still has an active online community... you're not missing out on much.

I feel very conflicted with this game. I think it fundamentally is a good game just because I do enjoy Puyo Puyo and Tetris. But at the same time I hated this game's existance the moment it was announced. This game not only is mostly the same, it doesn't really fix any of the issues with the first game. The plot I'm not even sure is any better than the mediocre bore fest that was the first game's plot. The skill battle mode also just feels really unbalanced but that's just me. I just don't really get who this game is meant for like yeah I guess I enjoyed it but more in a I liked the gameplay. It's a very hard thing to put into words. I feel like if I wasn't putting that in mind, this is an awful sequel and personally I think its sad this is basically all we got for it's 30th anniversary here. All I can hope for is they don't do a sequel and make an actual normal Puyo game. This game nowadays is like $12 and that really says a lot about the game.