This was a difficult video to make. I really did spend a month and a half in an endless loop of writing and rewriting and rewriting the script. Still not sure I'm happy with this draft, but I had to force myself to declare it final and start recording in order to get it out by release.

I fully expect this video to be a lot more divisive than my last one. I don't expect everyone to see eye to eye with me. Just... keep these comments civil, alright?

State of Puyo 2026: Arle in Sonic Racing Crossworld

Sega: does the dumbest things possible with an ip

Sega: "I guess westerners just have no interest in this series!"

Perfect example of self fulfilling prophecy bias.

I've just been playing against the CPU in kirby's avalanche and sonic mania this whole time I had no idea what was happening with Actual Puyo Puyo

As the local "tries to convince people to play Puyo" guy, I felt this video. I run local tournaments and know exactly what you're feeling towards the series and it's so frustrating. Thing is, when you ask "who is PPT2S for?" the answer is casuals. Neither the Tetris or the Puyo crowd. Casuals. The sentence I've heard the most from non competitive people curious to try the game is "oh, I love Puyo Puyo but I only know how to play Tetris" (they get my hopes up but then I realize they think "Puyo Puyo Tetris" is the series).

I have run several locals and meetups for PPT2 in casual formats (mixed doubles is the closest to competitive that seems to work) but I keep trying to push for champions for the same reasons you outline. And I suck at Puyo. I'm the best player in my region (or 3rd best as of this year) and I struggle to GTR and get trounced whenever I enter serious online tournaments like Yokozuna Crunch. I range between 0-2er and intermediate at best. But I love Puyo so much that I'm willing to TO for it and put up with Sega's bullshit.

Surprised you didn't mention VS Puyo Sun when listing recent games because it adds to the frustration. A full on new officially made backport of the multiplayer mode of Puyo Sun... that was only on the Megadrive Mini 2, a mini console that was available for purchase for like 15 minutes and only on Amazon. Whoopie.

I'm just rambling becuase I felt this video so much. Wish I had the answer to get people to try the damn games. My cope in this situation is to hope PPT2S is just a way to have something Puyo related for the Switch 2 launch and buy time while they make a new proper Puyo game and/or port Puzzle Pop. I can only hope.

Also, yes, crossplay is a must. I haven't even got the "win 10 ranked matches" achivement in Steam Champions because NOBODY plays there.

Greetings from Spain.

I have no experience with Puyo Puyo nor does it seem like the kind of game I'd play. However, I see a man trying to fight the good fight against a game shooting itself in the foot. You have my support.

I am a Japanese Puyo Puyo player. Many Japanese players also feel disappointment and anger toward SEGA's management of Puyo Puyo.
However, almost no one in Japan voices these opinions through videos or other means.
Thank you for the wonderful video.

Great vids. This whole situation sounds eerily similar to the struggles of a modern day Bomberman fan in many cases.

Tbh, I can understand WHY Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine gets constantly rereleased:
- Sega owns the code alongside the characters
- Recognizable character (Robotnik)
- AoStH being VERY popular with Sonic fans starting from the mid 2000s
- State that the player is Sonic off-screen
- Sonic = popular = MONEY

Not gonna lie, when I learned that Kirby’s Avalanche and Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine were just reskinned Puyo Puyo games because they had NO faith in this series doing good outside of Japan.

I was genuinely scared to see how this series is doing now. That’s still foul 😭

Lucy pulling a Blue Puyo away from Arle in the thumbnail made me laugh.

I tried to get into puyo puyo but the starting difficulties were rough. I was barely making a 3 chain. What sega need to do is make it accessible, have crossplay, good online and good single player mode like a light story mode to really introduce the players into puyo puyo. This is my thoughts and really wish not only puyo but competitive puzzle games to get a spotlight because i would wanna see some tournaments for it

What i hate the most is people telling me this game is a "pit stop" to keep us occupied while waiting for the next big game but like...

The past 10 years have been filled with these "pit stops"... How much longer am i supposed to be waiting?

And another thing that infuriates me is that the subscription based mobile exclusive game has more effort put into it than the last 10 years of console puyo...
God i hate sega

I am not tapped into the Puyo Puyo stuff, so I really do appreciate your vids on this stuff.

10 minutes screaming into the mic about a kid's falling block puzzle games

I feel like the best way forward would be re-releasing the old non-Tetris Puyo games first because I think the most appealing part of Puyo are its characters/world setting. The Puyo gameplay is pretty frustrating and hard to pick up for newcomers (even compared to other non-Tetris games, like Money Puzzle Exchanger or Kasiori), so there has to be a hook to keep them playing, and Puyo Puyo Champions doesn't have a story. It'd be pretty good if GOG could release the old PC versions of Puyo games on their platform at very affordable budget prices, even if those might not have online play, that's what Champions would be for then... That's the only way I could see Puyo Puyo getting a new proper Puyo Puyo game without a catch.
Or, you know, just release Puzzle Pop on other platforms, the online on it would be less dead if it's on a platform where you'd genuinely play online games on, but that's as likely as removing Denuvo from 7 year old Steam games, it won't happen.

Puyo Puyo Solitaire on GOG, make it happen. /jk

Even for someone like me, who loves PPT 1 & 2, I really didn't like that Sega went ahead and gave PPT 2 a re-release exclusively on the Switch 2. Exclusivity doesn't do ANYTHING good for Puyo games, and only harms them. But, Sega simply doesn't care because they are only focused on their big series. Sonic the Hedgehog, for example, in 2024... they were firing on all cylinders for it with the year of Shadow.

And since Sonic games and Puyo Puyo games are both developed by Sonic Team, the priority unfortunately goes to making Sonic titles. I understand why; Sonic has much more worldwide appeal than Puyo Puyo... but it's still incredibly frustrating that Puyo Puyo gets the short end of the stick, especially since the series is practically just as old as Sonic. Puyo Puyo had its own long-standing legacy, and it deserves better than how Sega is treating it nowadays. They're just content with doing the bare-minimum, and not putting in very much effort on top of that, which is NOT sustainable.

If they truly want Puyo Puyo to succeed on its own, then they have to start by re-releasing the games that need to be re-released, and make a bundle featuring ALL of them. In other words, a compilation title, much like what Puyo Puyo BOX did back in the old days, just with more games. Say what you will about Compile pumping out Puyo games in the 90's like no one's business, at least they put IN the effort to make a good game when it mattered. And although Puyo Puyo BOX was Compile’s swan song, they still put so much effort into making it, in spite of the fact that they were in their bankruptcy period.

But anyway… Sega can either give us a compilation title, or heck, they can put up another Puyo RPG.. Just give us Puyo fans something different for a change, and something that’s accessible to everyone. Them putting Puzzle Pop on Apple Arcade as an exclusive was pretty much a death sentence to the game itself, preventing people like me from playing it.

More than anything else though, I really want a new main-line game (for more than one platform) that can serve as not just a good entry for newcomers, but also have a good amount of single player content to keep players busy for a while. And much like a lot of other fans, I want there to be online cross-play, but not as much as them. I’ve always been more drawn to single player content in Puyo games, rather than competing with others online. But I know that other fans might value online play more, since they really want to put their skills to the test.

For me, though, it’s always been more about the stories, the characters, the lore, because those things aren’t really present in other puzzle game series. I believe it’s the one thing that truly stands out about Puyo Puyo. Like sure, the gameplay is really enjoyable a lot of the time. But, in my opinion… the glue that truly holds Puyo Puyo together are those characters, and the stories that they are a part of. Stories that I can just sit there and smile, laugh, and appreciate for what they are. Sure, they were never the deepest things ever, but they didn’t need to be. They just needed to be fun. And never has there been a series of games that was more fun for me than Puyo Puyo.

Almost a decade ago, this series stole my heart, and I’ve been a huge fan of the series ever since. And even though Puyo Puyo has been treated badly lately, that will NEVER destroy my love for the series. The games from Puyo Puyo’s past will serve as a reminder to me that future games have the potential to succeed. Sega just needs to be bolder and actually CARE about Puyo Puyo. But unless people start speaking up about their frustrations and grievances with how Sega’s been handling Puyo Puyo these days, then Sega will simply continue to rest on their laurels, and nothing will change.

And so, it has become our duty as the fans to bring about change by pushing the envelope and voicing our frustrations on a mass scale. Because if we don’t, then it’s likely that Puyo Puyo as we know it will just kind of… end. And let’s all be honest with ourselves here… None of us want the series to end, right? No matter what kind of Puyo Puyo fans all of us are, we all love this series too much to see it languish in this limbo-state. It’s like they say: When life gives you lemons… you make lemonade. It won’t be easy, but really, when has it ever been easy?

I know this all sounds overly dramatic for non-Puyo fans, but let me conclude this really long comment with a question to you guys specifically: How would YOU feel if your favorite long-running game series (which also happens to be niche, worldwide) was constantly being treated badly by its publisher in the modern age? You would be pretty upset, right? If so, then you now know our pain as Puyo fans. And that’s everything that I have to say.

As someone who first encountered Puyo Puyo through PPT and absolutely loves PPT, I pretty much agree with you. Puyo Puyo just needs a definitive game, something like Fever or Chronicles to have both single-player content and online content like Champions. I love Puyo Puyo Tetris, despite all its issues, but I can understand that it's not what Puyo players want. They just want a normal game with good, working online. But Dega doesn't seem to be interested, unfortunately.

honestly, i’ve been slowly and slowly losing interest in the puyo puyo series mainly because there’s really not anything NEW
puzzle pop is apple arcade exclusive and im broke, and ppt2s is literally just ppt2 but with 2 extra modes nobody’s gonna play.
and honestly i’ve been kinda taking this moment to go BACKWARDS in the series and start playing the previous games like chronicles and 15th anniversary
but for god’s sake sega
PLEASE release something FULLY NEW for my favorite puzzle game franchise

I don't know if it means much, but your State of Puyo Puyo videos helped me find the will to finish and release my own video essay called "Konami Doesn't Understand Bomberman" a few weeks ago.

I may be a more casual Puyo fan but I understand what it's like watching a big corporation frequently fumble one of your favorite franchises and potentially blame the IP itself instead of their poor decisions regarding it, And worse yet when no one else is really calling them out on this.

I said it in another comment a few months back but the situation is eerily similar to how Bomberman is, in the present day.

Keep doing what you're doing, it matters more than you may think.