Game Story Case Study, Episode 25: Puyo Puyo Tetris (Part 25)

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It is time to go over more of Puyo Puyo Tetris’s story mode. I am in the home stretch now, and will show every scene until the story ends. There isn’t much left to go, but I hope this series has helped to guide would-be writers, both in and out of the game industry. So, let’s get started.

Act 7, Scene 1:

Recap: Ringo and friends have completed their training to allow them to travel to the edge of spacetime in order to confront the madness that caused the Puyo Puyo and Tetris worlds to merge. We begin by seeing if this part of the plan worked.

Well, as you can see, Ringo and friends managed to travel safely. Let’s see if they found the Keeper of Dimensions.

Well, they found the keeper all right. First, I would like to point out that they introduced the character by talking off screen, without his name being displayed. I do find it odd that they show his name before anyone says it out loud. Neither method works well, but this game has done this for almost every character.

Now the next thing to point out is that Tee seems to know this guy. Let’s look at the next exchange to see what else we can learn.

 

Well now! That is a surprise! We now know why the game keeps mentioning the former Tetris King, he was actually important to the plot! We also have an idea of why Tee’s memory is also messed up, but the game is about to explain that. Both things are a little too convenient for this game’s writers, and I would argue is somewhat lazy writing.

I think it would have been better to mention the former Tetris King more often, although there should be a better way to hide his importance and his status of “villain”. As you will see in this scene, though, even that point is a little off. Let’s move on.

Okay… so that messes with people’s memory, why? I guess his existence is a bit of a distortion, but the story doesn’t really elaborate on that. I also find it odd that Tee’s memory returns, if only partially upon seeing Ex. You would figure something other than simply seeing Ex would jog his Tee’s memory, possibly as a power that Ex has. Oh well, this story has many missed opportunities in its writing, and this portion included at least three opportunities in one dialogue segment. Let’s move on.

Yeah, these characters have a point. Also odd is that this is never explained in full in the story, though the writers sort of try to do so. This is where things get somewhat interesting.

So it is at this point that the game switches to gameplay. I should note that the game has the player play Puyo Puyo and Tetris at the same time in a mode called “fusion”. While this game style is played at the right point in the story, from a game design perspective, it is a little odd to introduce a new gameplay mode this late in the game. Perhaps they could have introduced it around act 4 when fighting the possessed Puyo Puyo characters? Moving forward they could have switched between the three modes (Puyo Puyo, Tetris, and Fusion) based on which characters are in a scene and how much the two worlds are merged. 

One of my pet peeves in questionable game design is when the story interferes with gameplay. It doesn’t happen often in well known, high quality games, but it happens the most when gameplay tries to match the story, but makes the game less fun. This isn’t a huge gameplay deal-breaker here, due to story and gameplay being mostly separate, but the end result in Puyo Puyo Tetris is more odd than outright bad. This is a word of caution to new game designers.

Okay my rant is over, let’s see how the scene goes after the player wins.

I will point out that two characters in earlier scenes implied that the Keeper of Dimensions was malicious. As of right now, he seems helpful, if anything. Also, this is the end of the scene. I feel this is an abrupt end to the scene, an issue that this game’s story has in most scenes.

Act 7 scene 1 was mostly an introduction to the character Ex, and the edge of spacetime location. I feel much of the scene is pretty simple from a storytelling angle. It also seems that they missed a few spots with explanations, something that should be starting to come together in the final act. 

This story had been doing a fairly poor job so far, and that hasn’t changed yet. Stay tuned for the rest of these articles, as there should be seven more scenes to go over. If any are short enough, I may squeeze two scenes into one article. Hopefully, I can finish this critique of Puyo Puyo Tetris’s story by the end of this year, so look forward to more articles soon!

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That sums up this week’s scene from Puyo Puyo Tetris. What did you make of it? Was there something good or bad that I missed? Let me know in the comments below! If you enjoyed this article, then click that like button and share on social media. You can also subscribe to That’s All Games through email or WordPress to get notified when new articles go up. Until next time, have fun gaming!