|
I cannot claim to be a keeper of massive lore regarding puzzle games. Aside from infrequent Tetris games over the years I have little experience with the genre. Yet there is a large mixing of the puzzle and the RPG world, though it barely made any headway in English. The 'not in English' clause should make it clear I'm not referring to Puzzle Quest (though I do own and will eventually play that game).
The Puyo Puyo series is what attracts my attention today. Certainly some of its entries into the puzzle genre have hopped across the Pacific, and many readers with an affinity for such games have probably encountered them at one point or another. The Puyo Puyo titles can be summed up, for anyone without prior knowledge, as a competitive Tetris. More can certainly be said on the subject but the series' core gameplay revolves around this concept, so it shall suffice. The puzzle games in and of themselves, however warranted their wider exposure might be, have no real place for discussion on an RPG-centered site. The characters of the Puyo Puyo titles and the RPGs they originated in, however, are another tale entirely.
What is interesting regarding the Puyo Puyo titles is just how large a cast the games tend to possess, complete with backstories for each character. These characters, ranging from a Harpy with a horrendous singing voice to Skeleton T with a love for tea despite being nothing but bones, all have their roots in the Madou Monogatari titles. The Madou Monogatari games are quite old and very basic in play, with most of their entries being on the MSX system back in the 80's. The Mega Drive (Genesis) received a version of Madou Monogatari that's fairly interesting to play thanks to its need to enter fighting game-esque commands in battle. Every other version goes with standard turn-based combat simplified so much as to make Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest look complicated. Precisely how Compile decided to move into puzzle games with these incredibly basic mechanics is a mystery.
The exception to the rule of utter uncomplication is Madou Monogatari for the Saturn. While certainly not an intricate RPG with a battle system rivaling the genre's best, it is also not integer-phobic enough to eschew any HP or XP counts in favor of drawings doing the job. And being a conventional turn-based RPG is nothing bad when the game uses the charm of the Puyo Puyo universe as this game does. Sadly it will most likely never leave the Saturn, but it stands as the most worthy Puyo Puyo-based RPG in existence.
Which means that a new game using Puyo Puyo's universe in an RPG setting would be just fine. Compile went out of business years ago and Sega gave Sonic Team the job of putting out more Puyo Puyo titles, which it has intermittently done. Sega is no stranger to RPG development and a title like this would certainly be within its capabilities. Perhaps the battle system could actually use puzzle game mechanics instead of the same old turn-based rhythm everyone on this site has become accustomed to... but even if that did not happen, Puyo Puyo is wacky and charming enough to deserve a play from RPGamers.
|
RSS feed
iTunes