Pokémon Puzzle League : To Be A Puzzle Master

                                                               (Image Source: Wikipedia)

With the recent release of Pokémon Legends Za, I thought now was a better time than ever to talk about one of the spin-off games. With a franchise as massive as this, there are plenty of spin-off games, and I love many of them. This game is one of them. This game is just simply rad.

This game is another entry in the Panel De Pon or Puzzle League series, also known as Tetris Attack, where the blocks on the screen rise, you must make matches to clear them, making combos and even using the Pokémon you chose at the beginning in the match to launch attacks at your opponents board, trying to be the last one standing at you and your opponent face off simultaneously. There is also a sequel to this game on the Game Boy Color, but that game deserves a blog post of its own.

This game has a ton of the voice cast from the anime, as well as an original opening cutscene; this game is the only game I know of, based on the Pokémon anime. The music even has tracks and remixes of some familiar tunes from the show. The graphics in this game really work, and the vibes of this puzzle game are just great. There are tons of modes from a single player story, training modes, endless modes, and multiplayer modes as well. I mainly just focus on endless mode and story, but there are other single-player modes as well, such as line clear, and I think that's great.

The game's story mode takes you through a marathon of matches with infinite continues, but as you select the harder difficulties, more enemies and even some different endings are added, some of the difficulties have to be unlocked as well. The game, even on normal, can sometimes be a challenge, but as long as you keep going and don't give up, or in the case of NSO, use some save states and the rewind feature for Switch 2 users, you should be fine. 

This game is just a wonderful time, there are tons of content, and I love even just doing the endless mode. It is so fun to have a game based on the anime that many others and I would consider our first anime. The game is such a simple but great presentation, and even doing a run on the easy mode and being greeted with a screen that tells you to try other difficulties is fun for me. I love all sorts of puzzle games of so many different styles, from Bust A Move/ Puzzle Bobble, to of course, Tetris. There is a certain relaxation factor to me in just trying over and over again until I get farther, similar to how I feel about arcade modes in fighting games.

Sime puzzle games always have that arcade style feeling of trying from the beginning each time and learning new tricks to get farther. Starting over after a run and trying again, sometimes getting farther than you have ever gone, and other times not getting the blocks you needed. I love the simplicity, and at many points want to give a game just one more try and see if I can do better than I did before, whether to get a high score or to see the credits.

The Nintendo 64 has an interesting library. From games that helped create or shape whole genres, games that would inspire developers to this day, and times companies tried something different. Pokémon had so many different but unique games for this system, the Stadium games bringing the combat to 3D, but also having tons of fun minigames. Snap is a cool on-rails style game with a great and cozy atmosphere, and this game. Pokémon Puzzle League is worth at least one try; its presentation is great, it has fun music to listen to, and gameplay that is fun but challenging to master. The voice acting and opening cutscene make this feel like a childhood VHS tape that had three episodes of a show many of us love, and just that great nostalgic feeling. I have played this game on an original Nintendo 64 as well as on NSO, and it's just a solid time from start to finish, just like some of my favorite Tetris games.

In the case of wanting to be the best like no one ever was, sometimes it requires more than catching them all, sometimes to face the hidden bosses and true endings, we just gotta keep trying over and over, till the puzzle gets solved.