That’s a lot of ranting.
I get it. PuyoPuyo main story is necessary for casuals to get introduced to the game. Chaining 10+ long while harassing is a skill that took me a literal decade to reach, and there are far stronger players than me at the game.
But PuyoPuyo Tetris was that big casual story driven game that truly did bring a lot of players into the scene. Myself included. So yeah, I wouldn’t be a serious PuyoPuyo without that.
PuyoPuyo Champions/eSports is pretty good for competitive players. We got Fever and Tsu mode, the main modes that people care about.
There are also more casual mobile games like that Apple Arcade one brought up. The real issue is that modern video games make money from Apple and Android stores, not really the consoles anymore.
While my 2021 essay did aim to be as thorough as I could in criticizing PPT itself, all of my criticism of the game is secondary to my greater criticism of how Sega handled the series afterward. I wonder if being too thorough may have caused that thesis to be lost in the woods, but I hope this video today hammers that point back home.
If Sega had followed up PPT1 with a full mainline game, using its commercial success as a jumping off point for the series to go onto bigger and better things, I wouldn’t be so frustrated today. But instead of doing that… we got Apple Arcade.
Mobile games just make more money now than console games. It only makes sense to aim for casual gamers on the Apple Arcade or Android Play store.
It’s a problem in that it somewhat alienates the hardcore console players. But the console market is shrinking. That’s true for all fanbases, not just PuyoPuyo.
The only stuff that gets money in the console market are super mega AAA games that reach millions, like FFVII remake. But these mega-games cost so much that there’s no risk or creativity anymore. (I like PuyoPuyo Tetris’s style, it was a risk and a bit different. We need game makers to take risks like that)
