The Puyo's Long-awaited Spacetime Journey, multiple worlds included!
Puyo Puyo!! Quest is a free-to-play mobile game spinoff of the puzzle game series Puyo Puyo by Sega, launched in 2013. Taking cues from Puzzle & Dragons, it is a Puzzle RPG, where you form teams up to nine characters, and you explore dungeons to fight other quirky creatures and possibly familiar faces. Attacking involves tracing across the game field to delete Puyo off the board, utilizing the resulting cascade to chain, the colors of the Puyo designating who gets to attack. The colors, additionally, defines the character's "element" type and make up the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors triangle: Red beats Green, Green beats Blue, and Blue beats Red. Yellow and Purple beat each other, being stand-ins for light and dark. In its earliest iteration, you were just an adventurer exploring the island and popping Puyo along the way, with nary a plot to speak of aside from the standard manzai scenes that show character interaction.
In commemoration of the series' 30th Anniversary, the game has received a revamp in version 10.0, named the "Super Puyo Puyo Quest" update. In addition to geting a visual update, a proper storyline has been established that expands the story of Pwurp Island. Rookie detective Atari joins the Spacetime Detective Agency, which specializes in investigating space-time anomalies that happen all over Pwurp. Spacetime Tunnels from the sky are opening up, dropping Puyo all over the island, and...strange robotic dogs? Teaming up with the series' protagonists, the spacetime detectives are on the case to solve these phenomena that may even transcend time itself.
Puyo Puyo!! Quest contains the following tropes:
- Adaptational Modesty:
- Succubus was hit by this trope pretty hard when she returned with Sega deciding to bring her in line with their Tamer and Chaster standards. Compare her original dominatrix design
◊ to her redesign◊. It's to the point where most of the fanbase legitimately believed she was replaced by a different character in all but name for quite some time. - Flash Attack Rulue is really just Rulue wearing her outfit from Yo~n, but with the Fanservicey bits removed per Sega's Tamer and Chaster standards. Her red tube-top bra has been resized to the point that all traces of her originally somewhat-exposed cleavage have been covered up. She also now wears a long white shirt with the outfit that now covers up her originally exposed midriff, and her dress has more added to the waist to conceal the sides of her hips and butt.
- Succubus was hit by this trope pretty hard when she returned with Sega deciding to bring her in line with their Tamer and Chaster standards. Compare her original dominatrix design
- Allegedly Free Game: Puyo Puyo!! Quest is a standard "gacha" type mobile game that encourages the use of real-world cash to secure more chances to draw characters.
- Alternate Self: There are alternate versions of characters that are treated as a different person than their "prime" counterpart. "Steam City Arle", for example, is not the same Arle we all know, being a singer in a steampunk city.
- April Fools' Day: Puyo Quest celebrates this in several ways for only 24 hours, and they all typically gave away a Cabaloon for free as a gag present.
- Early incarnations popped a fake home screen that can be easily closed out.
- 2018: The game is reskinned into Puyo Touch, and gave away the Touch versions of Arle, Amitie, and Ringo. The Pastel Puyo skin introduced in Touch became a mainstay after the event, and the character cards became recurring April Fool's Day event maps.
- 2019: The game is reskinned into Puyo eSports theme, giving away the eSports versions of Carbuncle and Dark Prince.
- 2020: Sig-themed, the title screen being a honey-slathered tree, the interface being bug-themed, and the central character is Sig wearing a ladybug costume...while only speaking Pokémon Speak like his Japanese alternate voice in Puyo Tetris. A Golden Rhino Beetle was then given away as a present.
- 2021: Suketoudara-themed, utilizing a disco dance floor theme for the title screen. A Faketoudara (a human-limbed catfish) was given away as a present, and Dancing Star Suketoudara became an obtainable card in the gacha pool.
- 2022: Puyo Puyo Fever 2-themed, emulating the original game's title screen.
- 2023: Retraux, styled after Puyo Puyo 2, complete with a pixelated version of the game logo.
- Art Evolution: Some characters in gain more detailed coloring in their 6-star form. Compare 5-star Jaan◊ to 6-star Jaan◊.
- Art Shift: During the story mode, the Spacetime Detectives visit the era of Puyo Puyo Fever 2, complete with HD character sprites and art from that game.
- Bait-and-Switch: The story quest "Ally's Impossible Adventure!?" has two in the final chapter's final bosses — Ringo, Maguro, and Risukuma, in regards to Active Skills. Ringo begins the battle by turning 10 puyos into Nuisance Puyo. Alert players would expect that Maguro (who attacks second) would have a Skill that deals colorless damage based on how many Nuisance Puyos are in the board — which tends to be the case when Nuisance Puyos appear. But no, Maguro turns those Nuisance Puyos into prism balls, which power up your chains. Again, alert players may be wary and think it's Suspicious Video-Game Generosity, and that Risukuma's Skill may set up a Counter status on all three enemies, so that the Prism Ball boosts get reflected at the player's cards (something the Egyptian Mythos Series characters did in an earlier Guild Rush event). But no, Risukuma turns them into Heart Boxes... which at least does not boost your damage. Rinse and repeat.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Elisa, one of Dream Couriers in Puyo Puyo Quest. She acts cutesy in 4* and 5*, but not so much in her 6* rarity, where she shows a more disgruntled side to her. Turns out she's upset that her dreams aren't actually coming true because the recipients don't put in the effort in fulfilling them in the first place.
- The Bus Came Back: Exaggerated, this game has basically everybody that doesn't fall under Chuck Cunningham Syndrome. But if you need specifics...
- The characters gone for the least amount of time were Skeleton T, Dark Arle and Harpy in 7.
- Then we have the characters gone since 15th: Dapper Bones, Akuma, Baldanders, Nasu Grave and Zoh Daimaoh.
- And then there's the characters gone since Fever 2: Tartar, Gogotte, Hoho, and Frank & Stein.
- Evil Popoi returns after having been gone since Fever 1.
- Then there's those who were last seen in Minna: Incubus, Kikimora, Ragnus, Minotauros, Nohoho, and Serilly...
- But then we get to the motherlode, those who were last seen in BOX: Doppelganger Arle, Chico, Archan, Cait Sith, Sasori Man, Owlbear, Will 'o Wisp, the Banshee Trio, Succubus, Baromett, Pakista, Parara, Momomo, Panotty, Mamono, Honey Bee, Kodomo Dragon, Scylla, Lycanthrope, Cockatrice, Nega Kikimora and even Mandrake.
- And it doesn't stop there. The deepest cuts are the returning cast that were missing in even BOX: Demiserf and Jaan.
- Color-Coded Characters: Every single character in the game is color coded, making this an exaggerated trope. This game's character colors would go on to define how the cast was colored in later games, such as Tetris, Chronicle, and Tetris 2. It is not purely aesthetic either, due to the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors aspect of the game. All of these colors are noted on each character's page, unless they aren't in Quest.
- Continuity Cavalcade: The characters returning are an absolute boatload, some having not been seen since BOX if not before that. But there's more than THAT, too, such as Schezo in his classic outfit with his "Cool Schezo" alt, Witch and Rulue in their Yo~n outfits, Ringo in her school attire...
- With the theme song for the Super Puyo Puyo Quest update, they do some deep cuts, including namedropping all seven original titles and the major characters for everything up until Puyo Puyo Chronicle. Never mind the intro having Arle, Amitie and Ringo run through landscapes themed after their era of Puyo Puyo, with characters indicative of each era.
- Crossover: Whenever a collaboration with another series occurs, expect major characters from the series to join in as Guest Fighters, alongside several Puyo characters cosplaying alongside them.
- The game has has, so far, seen collaborations with Sonic the Hedgehog, (Shin) Sakura Wars, Case Closed, Osomatsu-san, Hatsune Miku, Bleach, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth (featuring characters and content from Persona 3, Persona 4 and Persona 5), Lupin III, Dr. Slump, Sailor Moon Crystal, Live Powerful Pro Baseball, Saint Seiya, GeGeGe no Kitarō, Haikyuu!!, Yes! Pretty Cure 5 (which was later rerun for the Pretty Cure 20th anniversary with content from Futari wa Pretty Cure note then rerun again a few weeks later to celebrate Otona Pretty Cure by adding content from Splash Star) Gintama, Re:Zero, Kamen Rider, Ojamajo Doremi, Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card, Doraemon, Jujutsu Kaisen, The Prince of Tennis, and Tiger & Bunny.
- A collaboration event featuring other Sega properties for Quest in June 2021 added characters from Kouchuu Ouja Mushiking, Love and Berry, Chain Chronicle, and Phantasy Star Online 2, with added Event Quests featuring Morolians from Space Channel 5. This was rerun in 2023 with characters added from Sakura Warsnote
- The Tetra Crew, Ex, Marle and Squares are somewhere between this and not being so, being characters created for the Puyo series but otherwise being treated akin to the collab characters (limited time events), so they would be considered a crossover with Tetris.
- Cool Crown: Puyo Quest holds a Popularity Contest ballot for players to vote on their favorite character in the game, and the winner of the vote gains a special form with a crown, which is then later distributed as a gift or as part of an event. So far, Sig, Witch, Arle, Schezo, and Rafisol have gained the honor.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The game's opening, "Let's Head Out, On We Go! Puyo Puyo!!!"note , is performed by Tajima Saran, Atari's voice actor.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Within its runtime, there are a lot of changes that make the original launch unrecognizable from its current version.
- Cards evolved with Puyo cards, which are also sources of EXP. While there are a few current-day examples, the introduction of evolution items by the Original Puyo Puyo card series made evolution item-based evolutions far more commonplace.
- If you wanted to collect evolution items, the Weekday Material Quests were timeframe-gated and limited run. These maps were eventually made mainstays until Sweets Mountain superseded those maps for finding said materials.
- The two challenge maps before Technical Maps were an Attack-Recovery stat swap map and a No Recovery map that doesn't drop Heart Boxes. When Power Creep set in, these maps' gimmicks were made moot and were eventually phased out. These gimmicks do still live on as stage effects as opposed to being their own maps.
- Collection Event-related examples:
- Once upon a time, these events gated the target character's 5-star evolution item behind a ranking and raffle. If you didn't rank high enough or were a lucky enough player to get one, you couldn't even evolve them past 4-star. It took a rerun of Carbuncle's event to make the 5-star evolution material a prize from collecting enough items (albeit at a ridiculously high requirement).
- Lemres, the very first Collection Event character, didn't even have unique materials until Ringo introduced character-specific evolution materials. When he was introduced in the short-lived Chinese version, he was given unique evolution items that didn't even make it to the main Japanese version: the Cute Lollipop and Pretty Lollipop.
- Bonus Time was once a specific timeframe that opened up Very Hard and Super Hard maps that offer more items. Nowadays, those two became permanent fixtures while Bonus Time became a random chance for a few minutes of double drops.
- Fairy Stones, when you have one of each color per series, would grant you a card, and a minor reward for repeat completions. They also functioned as a way to power up your Guild's towers as Tower Points. You could even trade in Battle Points for them. Fairies eventually got phased out, and allowed players to donate TP directly to the towers.
- Guild Towers once summoned a boss every 10 floors it grows, in an attempt to have guild members band together and earn that floor they built up. Tower bosses were phased out for Tower Dungeons that only the guild members could participate in.
- Battle required one of your regular decks to be assigned as a defending team to maintain your Battle ranking, and played like any other map except against another player's team. Battle mode eventually got revamped into its three-team 3-on-3 format with its own deck settings. That mode also used to be real-time against an actual player until that function got relegated to only Appointed Battles.
- Holiday Mode: The game has a New Year's theme that starts in January 1st, taking on the visual aesthetic of the holiday and changing the music.
- Idiot Hero: Atari perhaps dethrones Amitie as the dimmest of the Puyo protagonist lightbulbs. Atari has a big habit of leaping before thinking, whereas Amitie at least exercises common sense, even if she is slow-witted when it comes to planning.
- Mythology Gag: A purple colored version of Doppelganger Arle? Where have we heard that one before...?
- Power Creep: Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the nature of the game. Once upon a time, 5 stars were as high as the character ratings went; currently, the game is at 7 stars with the characters' potential stats at 7-Star being close to double their potential at 5-Star. Even the very early "Fest" cards like Dark Sig and Alter Ecolo have skills that were considered powerful in their day, only to feel more mundane as more Fest cards got released.
- Retraux: During the story mode's Art Shift to the Fever 2 era, there's new art for cutscenes in the style of this game, as well as the Spacetime Detectives themselves.
- Status Effects: A handful of cards can inflict status ailments among those listed here with their respective indicators.
- Fury: Cross-Popping Veins. Affected cards take x2 damage and have a 50% chance of missing their attack(s).
- Fear: Sweat drops. Affected cards inflict x0.5 damage and take x2 damage.
- Confusion: Green Circling Birdies (stars, rather). Confused cards will attack allies, including any secondary effects that are part of the attack.
- Paralysis: Yellow lightning bolts. Paralyzed cards take x3 damage and are unable to attack, freezing turn count on enemies. Status is dispelled on hit.
- Poison: Purple bubbles. Poisoned cards take purple damage proportional to 5% of affected card's HP.
- Seal: A red X. Does not freeze turn count or skill charge, but prevents the card from attacking. Variants include Complete Sealnote , which additionally disables Leader Skills, and Skill Sealnote , which freezes skill charge but doesn't stop normal attacks.
- Parasite: A sprouting seed. Affected cards' HP is siphoned proportional to max HP, which then heals the afflicter's team.
- Fatigue: A wispy cloud. Fatigued cards take x2.5 damage, but get a x1.5 attack boost for one turn once the status wears off.
- Feigned: A dirty smoke cloud. Feigned cards may miss, and prevents secondary effects from triggering (e.g. conditional boosts and status ailments).
- Frozen: A snowflake. Frozen cards cannot attack and have their turn count frozen. Affected cards suffer Attack Down when status wears off.
- Temporary Online Content: Events in a nutshell. You're only given a small window to grind out event points to gain prizes, ranging from resources and money, to the special event card and the materials to evolve it. Some cards may have a rerun in the distant future, but don't count on it if the event involves a collaboration.
- Uniqueness Rule: While the game doesn't stop you from, say, having a team of nothing but Amitie, there are limitations that encourage variety in team compositions.
- When building a team, combination bonuses will be cut off if it detects the same card being used in another slot (another player's supporter notwithstanding). For example, in a team consisting of Arle, Rulue, Schezo, Draco, and Witch will grant you the full OPP bonus. However, attempting to fulfill the same conditions with a team of Arle, Rulue, Schezo, Arle, and Witch will prevent the second Arle and Witch from getting the combination bonus. You can circumvent this limitation with Alternate Selves, but the game doesn't tell you who qualifies as such.
- Technical Quests, meanwhile, has this as a requirement before challenging them. You won't be allowed to enter the quest if it detects duplicate characters. Like combination bonuses, you can go around this with alternate versions of characters.
- The Un-Reveal: One cutscene in Super Quest has Atari come close to learning the name of Arle's original world, as hers is the only dimension that lacks an official name, only for Atari to be dragged back to the Spacetime Detective Agency by Roquier and Seo before Arle can give an answer.note
- Unusual Halo: The School of Darkness council members, who are all dark angels, have purple ring-shaped halos. They're Psycho Rangers (but not outright enemies) to the School of Light's angel council members.
