I'm a long-time fan of both the Tetris and Puyo Puyo series. Tetris is the more-familiar and easier series for me, and I've been gradually chipping away at the mountain of Tetris games out there, the hitherto most recent of which was Tetris 99 which I blogged about in April of 2019. Admittedly, I haven't played nearly as much Puyo Puyo, but I did blog about my playthrough of the Japan-only release Puyo Puyo Tsuu on Wii near the end of last year.

This brings me to Puyo Puyo Tetris, one of the Switch's launch titles, and a game that I picked up pretty early on. I had actually played through a decent chunk of the story mode while on a long flight, but then put it aside for no particular reason. I was happy enough to pick it up again and blow through the rest of the story mode, and I enjoyed how that mode forces you to work your way through all the variations of Puyo Puyo and Tetris that the developers came up with. Alex from NintendoLife disliked the story part of the story mode, but I found the over-the-top antics of the quirky cast to be entertaining and enjoyable (the highlight being the muscle fish man). It was also fun to hear a lot of familiar voices, as the game is fully voice acted and features a ton of actors who have also worked on the Fire Emblem Heroes game.

As for the game modes, you could, of course, just play Tetris or Puyo Puyo on its own, but the game introduces pretty much every permutation of the two you could think of. You can play Tetris while your opponent plays Puyo Puyo, or vice versa. You can both play head-to-head Tetris and at regular intervals the board switches to Puyo Puyo, and so forth. There's a weird fusion mode that is mostly Puyo Puyo focused, but drops huge Tetris blocks that add a layer of strategy as they can rearrange your Puyos, and as another wrinkle, you can also play either of the two game types in a "party" mode that adds in items with helpful effects. There are also miscellaneous a mode that focuses on making chains (much more worthwhile in Puyo Puyo mode than Tetris mode), and for pretty much all of these modes you can play in a solo mode (timed or marathon), vs. the CPU, vs. online, or vs. local.

Phew! Although I said I played through the story mode, that isn't quite true, as I only beat the main story, which consists of seven chapters. There are an extra three episode-like chapters that unlock at that point (I think they were originally DLC in the original Japanese release of the game), but they're not related to the main story. For every stage in the story mode there are three targets where you can aim to earn up to three stars, and although getting all three stars in the first few chapters were easy enough, it would definitely take a lot more effort to perfect every challenge. For me personally I've still been playing Tetris 99 semi-regularly whenever they introduce a new skin, so this on top of my long history with the series made the Tetris stages pretty easy for me. My PP skills, in contrast, were pretty lacking, though, and it took time for me to remember how to even do three chains consistently, ha. Anyway, overall I enjoyed my time with the game, and although I don't really consider it an essential version of either game, it's also kind of a nice two-for-one modern experience of both. I really don't see the point of a sequel, but Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 was released at the end of last year and apparently introduces character-specific skills. I can't say that I'm rushing to play that game, but I'll keep it on my radar and I'm sure I'll get to it eventually after I've caught up a little on some of the older games in both series.

The bombshell announcement of Metroid Dread, the next Metroid game at this past E3 reminded me that I'd never finished the previous Metroid series release, Metroid: Samus Returns, on 3DS. Samus Returns was released four years ago (yikes!) and is a remake of Samus's second adventure, Metroid II on Game Boy. I'd enjoyed the step forward that Metroid II provided to the series, but when discussing Samus Returns you really have to compare it to Metroid: Zero Mission, the GBA remake of the very first Metroid game ever. I was really impressed with Metroid: Zero Mission, which took many of the items introduced in later installments and seamlessly retrofitted them into the original.

Samus Returns goes a step further and also incorporates four completely new abilities (called "Aeion" abilities) that are based on a separate energy reserve, as well as a melee counter. I thought the melee counter was going to be finicky and annoying, but it turned out to be easy to pick up and execute, and leads to some fun animations when used against bosses. I haven't done a side by side comparison, but it feels like Samus Returns reworks the original Metroid II maps much more extensively than the original. The original Metroid II was extremely linear and there was no reason or convenient way to go back to earlier areas. Samus Returns still has you focused on eliminating the Metroids within one area at a time, but in more modern-day Metroid fashion it gives you a lot of incentive to revisit previous areas because your ability to open previously blocked off paths grows with your increased abilities and it offers plenty of warp points as well as an indication of your percentage completed for each area.

The game is co-developed by MercurySteam, who previous to this game had produced what seems to have been a well-received Castlevania game, and they're also behind the upcoming Metroid Dread. Everything runs super smoothly and the game is pretty well paced, although the boss fights are almost all crammed towards the end and each often takes a bit longer to get through than they should. Defeating Metroids can get a little repetitive despite their different forms, but this is offset by slight differences in the rooms they appear in and your growing sense of powerfulness as your equipment improves. These are minor complaints, however, and in general the game is everything you'd expect from a Metroid game in terms of the puzzle-solving, action, design, and atmosphere. The four Aeion abilities give you a bit of flexibility in how you approach the game, and apparently the Amiibo provide some nice but pretty unnecessary perks.

It seems like every other indie game is a Metroidvania these days, so I've been quite burned out on them, but Samus Returns is a case of a remake done right and was really enjoyable, so much that I've had to add it to my list of greatest games of all time. My streak of great games has continued this year, surprisingly, although I don't have anything in particular lined up for the near future, so the rest of the year will probably be a bit less noteworthy. We'll see!

Despite owning tons of games on Steam, somehow I end up playing hits that have been on Steam for years only when they arrive years later on a console such as Switch. A case in point is TowerFall, which debuted five years ago on the ill-fated Android-based console Ouya, and appeared on Steam not too long after. The Switch version came out three years ago, and I've been dipping into it occasionally when my local gaming buddy and I get together. We've been having a blast with the game, and we had finished the Dark World campaign (originally released as an expansion DLC), which features waves of enemies and some fun boss fights, but we finally were able to sit down and made our way through the other campaign, which actually preceded it and was part of the Ascension expanded version of the game.

With that history out of the way, I can say that although TowerFall was primarily designed as an arcade-y multiplayer versus experience, the co-op campaign mode is super fun and beautifully builds on the base mechanics. The game is comfortably in the vein of single, wraparound screen classics, complete with retro graphics and sound, and while the various enemies and environmental hazards aren't anything too wildly different from what we've seen before in these kinds of games, the arrow-shooting mechanics feel fresh and spot on. Everything in the game just flows and feels so smooth, and the design is top notch. Although my buddy and I failed many, many times, this is one of those games that has that addictive "just one more try" and "we'll get it the next time" hooks. To add to the replayability, both of the campaigns feature hard versions of every stage that are significantly more challenging, and they also offer the allure of a shiny gold icon if you beat them without any deaths.

Even without having spent hardly any time in the multiplayer mode, this game has continued my run of great indie games that I've played this year that have somehow made it onto my list of greatest games of all time. Developer/designer Maddy Thorson has done an amazing job on this game, and I'm reminded that I really need to go back and finish my playthrough of their follow-up game, Celeste. Looking forward to it, although I'm hoping it doesn't kick my ass too hard. ;)

I know I just blogged about my time with Picross 3D on DS, but I was curious about its follow-up on 3DS, somewhat oddly called Picross 3D Round 2, and before I knew it I was completely sucked in. Similar to how the fantastic 3DS puzzle game Pushmo had two excellent follow-ups that extended the elegant game mechanics of the first game, Crashmo and Stretchmo, Picross 3D Round 2 adds a fantastic new twist to the core Picross 3D mechanics.

The game introduces colors to puzzles, where blocks you mark as blue represent regular cubes, whereas the blocks you color orange represent shapes that are not cubical, e.g. curved or spherical. This frees the puzzles to have much more variety in their shapes, but even though you don't have any control over what shape the orange blocks take when the puzzle is complete, the real key here is that having to determine if a block should be removed, colored blue, or colored orange add a huge amount in terms of new ways you have to apply logic to solve a puzzle. Now you have to examine the labels on the rows and columns to see if they contain only orange, only blue, or both orange and blue blocks, and on top of that you have the mechanics from the previous game to contend with where if a number has a circle around it, that means that color is split into two groupings (i.e. at least one space or block of the other color in between), and if the number is in a square it means that the color is divided into three or more groups.

The game solves the issue of the previous game where you had to do every puzzle in order, and you can jump around between sets of puzzles which unlock at a regular clip based on how many puzzles you've solved and how many medals you've earned (for solving puzzles without any mistakes and within the par time). I ended up jumping into the deep end and completely skipping over the tutorials on these new mechanics and figuring out the logic that is needed on my own, which was also satisfying, but the the tutorials and the puzzles themselves give a much smoother progression in general. The game also basically triples its content because each puzzle comes in an easy, normal, and hard difficulty level. I also skipped straight to the hard difficulty, which has many rows and columns with numbers completely missing, forcing you to apply even more logic to work around the missing information. Although it took some time getting used to them, the added challenge was definitely appreciated. As with the previous game, Picross 3D Round 2 was also developed by HAL Laboratory and is stuffed with charm. The game's vibe skews older than the previous title, and it's hard for me to imagine a kid having the patience to work through these kinds of puzzles.

There are nine unlockable Amiibo puzzles that I didn't get to try out because I was playing on an original 3DS (which doesn't have an Amiibo reader built in), and as with the previous game I still find it annoying that a single accidental slip of a button or stylus can cause a mistake and cost you a medal. Replaying stages is still fun, though. Timed stages are still a pain, though, as are the puzzles where you can't make any mistakes, but it seems like you can avoid those for the most part. Also, originally I was annoyed that this was only available as a downloadable title in North America, but its addictive nature is perfect for gaming on the go and is one of the few that would be worth downloading even if a cartridge were an option.

Despite my quibbles, Picross 3D Round 2 is a superb evolution from the previous game, and its new twists on the gameplay already push it ahead. Its better progression, ability to skip puzzles, stereoscopic 3D, and multiple difficulty levels for every puzzle just add to its greatness, and even though I haven't made much of a dent in it yet, I already know it deserves a place on my list of greatest games of all time. I love a good puzzle game, and this is definitely one of the best I've played in a long while. Highly recommended.