Pochi to Nyaa (2003, PS2)

Compile’s Puyo Puyo series (Puyo Pop, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, and Kirby’s Avalanche in America) was a curious thing. Every iteration was more complex than the last while remaining just as accessible as the one that preceded it. Typically, puzzle game franchises heap new mechanics on top of gimmicks, diluting original concepts beyond recognition. There is a reason Tetris 2’s bomb mechanic was abandoned after one game. Bombastic buries Devil Dice’s elegance in trick pieces. Puzzle Bobble (Bust-a-Move) became so clogged with additions that the value of planning and placing a shot was subsumed by player knowledge of a given iteration’s recondite rules and tricks. But Compile beat the odds.

Every Puyo Puyo had a unique wrinkle. Some were better than others, but every Puyo Puyo was good. What’s more unusual: Puyo Puyo sequels never rendered their predecessors obsolete. Puyo Puyo~n’s (1999) character-specific attacks are fun. So are Puyo Puyo Sun (1996) unique sun pieces. So is working doubly hard to eliminate Puyo Puyo Tsu’s (1994) lead pieces. And so is delaying retaliation with Pochi to Nyaa’s (2003) detonators.

This is the way detonators work: matching colored pieces does not immediately clear them. Instead, clearing pieces requires a piece and like-colored detonator. You can change your piece to a detonator with a button press as it's falling. That’s it.

 

What does the addition of detonators accomplish? It heightens tension. Executing a combo built around a detonator (or two, or three) is potentially devastating to your opponent, but spending too much time orchestrating a combo leaves you at risk of having your detonators buried in “garbage,” defusing your combo and leaving you with a pile of problematic pieces to deal with. Unprecedented combo potential and the risk of its pursuit intensify the tension between risk and reward, between Do I and Don’t I. This is the kind of stuff great designers think about. This is the kind of stuff great designers think about you thinking about.

I write about Pochi to Nyaa not only because it’s a great puzzle game with a charming aesthetic and a challenging single player mode, but because it’s a great sequel. Sequels are too often designed by addition: more maps, more guns, more characters. This approach is boring and wasteful. Once Super Street Fighter IV was released, there was no reason to revisit Street Fighter IV. Pochi to Nyaa doesn’t offer anything more than the game that came before it, Puyo Puyo~n. It offers something different; something new. Compile was masterful in designing by reduction and by transmogrification. I am sad to see them go, but am happy they left with dignity. Pochi to Nyaa is their design philosophy, their creativity, their sense of whimsy, and their Teddy Ballgame last-career-at-bat homerun.

Highest Recommendation