Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary
| Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary | |
|---|---|
 Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary Box Art (Wii) | |
| Developer | Sonic Team |
| Publisher | Sega |
| Platforms | Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Wii |
| Players | 1-8 players |
| Release date | Nintendo DS
PlayStation 2 & PlayStation Portable
Wii
|
Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary (also known as ぷよぷよ！Puyopuyo 15th anniversary, Puyopuyo! 15th Anniversary) was created by Sonic Team to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Puyo Puyo. As such, it revives both the gameplay rules of the arcade Puyo Puyo and Puyo Puyo Tsu, and brings back six characters from the original Madou Monogatari series.
This game was followed by Puyo Puyo 7.
Story
Main article: Story in Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary
The story of Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary takes place at a tournament held by Primp Magic School. At the tournament, the characters are competing to win a chance to have their wish granted by the tournament's grand prize, a medal. Before the beginning of the tournament, many comets appeared in the sky and crashed near the school, which turned out to be various familiar characters from Arle's original world.
Gameplay
Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary is an action-puzzle game that introduces several new modes while bringing back previous modes such as Puyo Puyo, Puyo Puyo Tsu and Puyo Puyo Fever. This game's story mode is episodic and follows different characters as they battle their way through their tournament opponents. The modes used when battling opponents are chosen by a roulette before each match.
Modes
- Mega Puyo - In this mode, Puyo are twice as large and the field is only 3x6, half of a normal Puyo field. Less nuisance is sent to opponents in this mode. Your goal is simply to defeat the opponents.
- Bomber - In this mode, instead of sending Nuisance Puyo, you send Bomb Puyo, which explode after the user with them makes a certain amount of moves. When this happens, all Puyo surrounding the bomb will become Hard Puyo. Any Bomb Puyo caught in this explosion will explode.
- Non-Stop Fever - In this mode, you start off with a Fever mode that does not end, and a large number of pending Nuisance Puyo (However, they can not act, because they are pending and you can't leave Fever mode - the only thing you can do is offset them with chains.). The goal of this mode is to get rid of your pending nuisance and keep your chains large so it doesn't come back at you.
- Excavation - In this mode, you start with a half-filled regular field. Hidden on the bottom row is a special Star, that, when the Puyo next to it it are popped, will send infinite nuisance to all other opponents. Your goal is, obviously, to get this Puyo and defeat the opponents.
- Puyo Puyo - This mode is based off the original Puyo Puyo which didn't have offsetting.
- Puyo Puyo Tsu - This mode is based off of the gameplay in Puyo Puyo Tsu, which introduced offsetting.
- Puyo Puyo Fever - This is Fever mode. Much similar to gameplay of Puyo Puyo Fever and Puyo Puyo Fever 2, but with small updates. The Fever counter is more rigid and actually represents the time you have - as soon as it reaches 0, the time is up and it can not be lifted by the end of a chain. The Puyo counter in Puyo Puyo Fever and possibly Puyo Puyo Fever 2 also updated before changing the internal counter, making it more difficult to tell how much longer your Fever lasts.
- Spinner - In this mode, your field will rotate every 15 seconds. The counter acts similar to the Fever counter - when time is up, it waits for you to drop your last Puyo. When all players are idle and the time is up, the boards spin 180 degrees and then gravity acts on the Puyo. A special bonus is given to chains that continue after or are started from the spin.
- Ice Blocks
- In this mode, instead of sending Nuisance Puyo, you send frozen Puyo blocks, which become unfrozen after the player who has them makes 3 moves. Because of the nature of sending the other player Puyo blocks that have the ability to chain, this mode can turn around if the chain created by the original sender is not large enough to defeat the opponents.
- Mission Puyo - In Mission Puyo, you are given a task which you must complete before your opponents. You simply complete 4 tasks before the opponents can to win the game.
- Searchlight - In this mode, Your Puyo field is only partially visible on the screen at any time (except during Fever). The visibility range is a cone, originating from the top of the screen and expanding downward, which is in a constant sway. The speed the cone sways at depends on what difficulty the game is set to. This mode is difficult because it disorients proper placement of Puyo, or causes the player to have to slow down and wait for the searchlight to pass an area unknown to them in order to make proper chains.
- Underwater - Underwater mode is a slow moving mode where you place Puyo into a body of water filled up to two Puyo. Puyo float in the water, making the mode in essence the same as placing Puyo at the bottom of a Puyo field. Due to the nature of this mode, Nuisance Puyo only fall in groups of 1 line. This prevents Nuisance Puyo from causing chains due to unequal descent of columns.
Puyo Skins
While Puyo Puyo Sun and Puyo Puyo Fever 2 introduced variants of Puyo the player could choose to replace the default, all of them were simply recolors. Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary is the second game in the series to feature proper skins for the Puyo as opposed to mere alternate palettes after Puyo Puyo (1991). The Nintendo DS version contains many more Puyo skins than the other versions, and some of them are exclusive to 8 player mode while others are only available outside of it.
Real, Classic, Letter, Board, Tape, Chalk, MSX, Morolian, Sonic, and Charcoal can only be used outside of 8 player mode. Meanwhile, Bean, Star, Tile and Block can only be used within 8-player mode. The two sets of Puyo skins can be set separately, unlike future games with 8P modes in which the two are stacked due to the presence of Mini Puyo Fever.
Bombs from Bomber rule do not count as Nuisance Puyo, and thus are not acknowledged as Puyo for the purposes of Puyo skins. Only the main 5 and Nuisance Puyo are.
- Available in all versions, and available from the start of the game, are Real, Classic (which imitates the style of Puyo 1 and 2's Puyo), and Fever (which mimics the look of the Puyo from Fever 1 and Fever 2).
- The DS version adds two exclusive base skins, Metallic (known as Alt. Color in the fan translation, or known as Silky), which imitates the alternative coloration of the Fever 2 Puyo, and Flat Color, which stylizes the Puyo from Real and gives the Red Puyo a different facial angle.
- Cube, which makes all of the Puyo more square, can be unlocked by defeating 8 opponents in Puyo 1!Endless Battle (in one try). Doing the same for Puyo 2 nets Human, which mimics the look of the Human Puyo from Puyo 1 8-bit, and for Fever unlocks Capsule, which makes the Puyo into small orbs without defining features.
- Board is unlocked if you score over 242,415 points in Endless Mission in one game, making the Puyo resemble blank slate versions of the Real Puyo. Endless Fever gives you Box, which makes all of the Puyo into palette-swapped boxes, and Normal Endless gives you Tape, which has paper Puyo that are taped together instead of merging, for the same point requirement.
- Clearing all 300 Drills in the Lesson mode grants access to Chalk, allowing the player to use the Lesson Mode's Puyo skin in all matches.
- The remaining Puyo skins are all tied to Story Mode S-Ranks.
- Get 2 and you will unlock Bean, which makes the Puyo into beans.
- Get 4 and you will unlock Star, which makes the Puyo into small stars.
- Get 6 for Tile, which makes all of the Puyo into small tiles.
- Get 8 for Block, which makes the Puyo into blocks.
- Get 12 for MSX, which mimics the looks of the MSX version of Puyo 1 8-bit.
- Get 16 for Morolian, which turns all of the Puyo into the Morolian species from Space Channel 5, another SEGA series.
- Your reward for collecting every S-Rank is Sonic, which turns all of the Puyo into various Sonic characters.
- Knuckles replaces the Red Puyo. Sonic replaces the Blue Puyo. Silver replaces the Green Puyo. Tails replaces the Yellow Puyo. Amy Rose replaces the Purple Puyo. Chao replace the Nuisance Puyo.
- Lastly, for getting S-Ranks will all unlockable characters (the returning Compile cast outside of Arle and Carbuncle), you get the Charcoal skin, which gives the Puyo a tribal design and feel.
- The Wii, PS2, and PSP versions do feature unlockable skins, but they are limited to Flat Color, Letter, Cube, Clear, and Chalk. The former 4 are unlocked upon completions of 5, 10, 15, and all 22 S-Ranks in Story Mode, while the last of them is unlocked through clearing all 300 Drills in Lesson mode.
Multiplayer
The Multiplayer modes in this game are a lot more focused in this game compared to the two Puyo Puyo Fever games, with most modes, including the three main rules(Puyo Puyo, Puyo Puyo Tsu and Puyo Puyo Fever) being playable up to 4 players, with customizable rulesets in both Single(comupter VS.) and Everybody Puyo Puyo(human VS.) modes. The Nintendo DS version of 15th Anniversary contains all multiplayer modes that the Nintendo DS officially supports, also being one of the first games/versions that supports Wi-Fi(online play) from Puyo Puyo Fever(only existing in the PC version) onwards.
The Playstation Portable contains all local multiplayer modes that the Playstation Portable officially supports, with Face-to-Face returning from the Puyo Puyo Fever games.
The Playstation 2 normally only supports 2 controllers - a multitap is required for 4-player games.
Everybody Puyo Puyo
In the DS version, players without a copy of Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary can play this mode along with those that do. The only difference between playing with a copy and without a copy is that the download and play version does not contain voices or cut-ins. The game is functionally compatible, for the most part. Therefore, Both the Nintendo DS Download and Play modes and direct connection modes are accessible from here.
In the PSP version, a seperate Game Sharing room is required to start Game Sharing matches, and every guest must use their own Game Sharing feature to join the host's room.
Up to 8 players can play and in any mode that the amount of players permits. (When playing with over 4 players, you can only play Puyo Puyo, Puyo Puyo Tsu, and Puyo Puyo Fever modes.)
Face-to-Face
The mode is functionally identical to the one shown in Puyo Puyo Fever 2, but now with a new instruction screen that is shown before every match that shows the controls for both players. This is the variation that would be used for the later two Puyo games(Puyo Puyo 7 and Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary) released for the PSP.
Wi-Fi
In this DS-exclusive mode, you can use the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to face players across the internet. The Wi-Fi mode supports only 3 modes (Puyo Puyo, Puyo Puyo Tsu, and Puyo Puyo Fever), and only one can be played for rank points (Puyo Puyo Fever). In addition, up to 4 players can play in one Wi-Fi match - however, playing with more than 2 will cause the game to not affect your rank points.
The Wi-Fi mode also supports Friend Codes - you can host and join matches that your friends create.
Characters
Default
- Accord & Popoi
- Akuma
- Amitie
- Arle & Carbuncle
- Baldanders
- Donguri Gaeru
- Feli
- Klug
- Lemres
- Lidelle
- Ocean Prince
- Otomo also appears in a few animations.
- Onion Pixie
- Oniko also appears in various animations.
- Dapper Bones
- Raffina
- Sig
- Yu & Rei
Unlockable
The following characters must be unlocked by playing through Story mode:
Development
Post-release
Given that this game was only sold in Japan, it sold very well, selling about 650,000 copies:
| Game | Release Date (earliest) | Sales (Copies Sold) | Citation(s) | Date of Citation(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Puyo Puyo Fever 2 | November 24, 2005 | Around 120,000 | Source 1 Source 2 | August 31st, 2024 |
| Puyo Puyo 15th Anniversary | December 14, 2006 | 649,869 | Source | May 1, 2013 |
| Puyo Puyo 7 | July 30, 2009 | 493,196 | Source | May 1, 2013 |
| Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary | July 14, 2011 | 325,832 | Source | May 1, 2013 |
| Puyo Puyo!! Quest | April 24, 2013 | At least 26,000,000 | Source | February 28, 2022 |
| Puyo Puyo!! Quest Arcade | November 7, 2013 | At least 1,500,000 | Source | July 11, 2016 |
| Puyo Puyo Tetris | February 6, 2014 | Over 1,400,000 | Source | November 19, 2020 |
| Puyo Puyo Chronicle | December 8, 2016 | No numerical estimate, but confirmed poor salesª | Source | July 22, 2021 |
| Puyo Puyo eSports/Champions | October 25, 2018 | |||
| Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 | December 8, 2020 | 500,000-600,000ᵇ | Source | July 22, 2021 |
Note: 400,000 is generally considered to be the minimum amount for a mass-market game to be considered "successful" in Japan.
| See footnotes: | ||||
|
ª From the interview:
(If you are searching for this excerpt in the interview, copy only the first or second paragraph, but not both.) ᵇ Total sales derived from ([Puyo Puyo Tetris 1&2 (over 2 million)] - [Puyo Puyo Tetris 1]) |
Cheats
- While the cheats are the same throughout all versions, the buttons listed in this section correspond to the Nintendo DS version unless noted otherwise.
- Many of these cheats also work in Puyo Puyo 7 and Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary.
- Unlock All
- At the title screen, hold L + R and press Up, Down, Right, Left, X, B, Y, A.
- In the Wii version, select Option, select Settings, highlight the Chain Animations option, hold + and - and press Up, Down, Left, and Right using a Wii Remote, or hold X and Y and press Up, Down, Left, and Right with a Gamecube controller.
- Harder CPU in Battles (Core AI Cheat)
- Hold Select while selecting the CPU character (in Endless modes, hold Select while selecting your character).
- In the Wii version, hold - with a Wii Remote, or Y with a Gamecube controller.
- Use Dropsets in Endless Modes
- Hold Select while selecting your character.
- In the Wii version, hold - with a Wii Remote, or Y with a Gamecube controller.
- Set Player as CPU
- Hold Select while selecting the difficulty during the start of the match.
- In the Wii version, hold - with a Wii Remote, or Y with a Gamecube controller.
- Set Max Speed in Endless
- Hold Select while selecting the difficulty during the start of the match.
- In the Wii version, press - with a Wii Remote, or Y with a Gamecube controller.
- Core AI in Endless Battle
- Hold Select while selecting your character.
- In the Wii version, press - with a Wii Remote, or Y with a Gamecube controller.
- Instant Win/KO All CPU's in Free Battle
- Press L + R + X + Y during a match.
- In the Wii version, press A + B + 1 + 2 Wii Remote, or L + R + A + B with a Gamecube controller.
- Choose Random Mode
- Press X while in a Mode Select menu.
- In the Wii version, press - with a Wii Remote, or Y with a Gamecube controller.
Trivia
- The special price edition of the Nintendo DS version contains a mode called Puyo Puyo Sniper that cannot be unlocked. Video
- The Wii version contains 4 extra BGM that are not present in the other versions. These BGMs were included in all versions of Puyo Puyo 7.
- The Ultimate Legend of the Untrained Demon King, Popoi's battle theme from Puyo Puyo Fever, can be unlocked by getting an S rank in Ms. Accord's Story.
- Crimson Wave!, Possessed Klug's theme from Puyo Puyo Fever 2, can be unlocked by getting an S rank in Klug's Story.
- Request from Puyo Puyo, the Stages 9-12 theme of Puyo Puyo (1992), and Training music in Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, can be unlocked by getting an S rank in Zoh Daimaoh's Story.
- Last from Puyo Puyo 2, the Floor 6 theme of Puyo Puyo Tsu, can be unlocked by getting an S rank in Satan's Story.
- Arle mentions Minotauros when she fights against Baldanders in her story.
- Every character in the game has one unused battle quote. For most, it is the name of a defensive maneuver, or otherwise a name that fits their spell theme, while for others it is a standard phrase (Klug, Rulue, Donguri Gaeru, Baldanders, Ocean Prince).
- It is possible that the cut-ins were only supposed to occur when animations would play, serving as a "counter-spell". While this has never come into fruition for any standard game, Puyo Puyo VS. 2, a fangame, does feature this.
- Sig, Ms. Accord, Akuma, Suketoudara and Schezo already have spells, however they have two spells instead of a standard phrase.
Bugs
- The Nintendo DS version had several bugs:
- In the original release of Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary, a bug existed where data would not save anymore after 255 times. A new version, nicknamed 1.1, was released to solve the problem. This fixed version can be identified by the big Green Puyo on the back of the back of the game case and the white Nintendo DS text/black background on the game card.
- In both of these versions existed yet another bug, this one effecting WiFi. When a player disconnected, both lost points. This issue was fixed in the special price edition of Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary and version 1.2 of the English fan translation.
- While playing multiplayer games, the Fever Gauge will occasionally freeze on 7 points without letting you enter Fever mode. It will subsequently let you in after your next move, but this may be deadly depending on the circumstances.
Gallery
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DS version boxart -
Title Screen
External links