06.12.07
Go buy Planet Puzzle League
After a long wait, Planet Puzzle League (Panel de Pon, Tetris Attack, Pokemon Puzzle) is finally out. I picked it up (two copies) about a week ago, and I love it so far. Feels a bit strange to be getting so much enjoyment out of a game I’ve played so many times before.
+ Touch screen control is awesome. No more frantically moving the cursor up and down with the D-pad. Just for kicks I tried playing it with the D-pad this evening and it felt really sluggish.
+ Online play. Would have liked Tetris DS-style rankings, but this is good enough. Will probably be playing with people I know for the most part. When playing against friends you have the option of turning voice chat on.
+ It’s the same core gameplay.There’s a great mixture of well-planned attacks, on-demand chaining, and frantically searching for a single match. I think that the best play mechanic is being able to continue to manipulate the game board as a chain propagates (unlike in Puzzle Fighter, Puyo Pop, Bust a Move, etc.). Powerful special items have been added to make the game a lot more interesting and unpredictable, giving you new ways to screw with your opponents.
Meteos-style skins and music. Very reminiscent of this other DS puzzler. Not sure if I like it since I always use red hearts, green squares, yellow stars, blue triangles, and purple diamonds.
- No avatars. I truly miss the Tetris Attack animals and the Pokemon from previous incarnations of this game, especially the sounds that thye made. I also kind of liked the 1P mode of battling different opponents.
- No easy way to refer to the game.“Tetris Attack” and “Pokemon Puzzle” were good names. “Planet Puzzle League” is not, and “PPL” is confusing to people.
