I was going to start this review off with a comment referencing "the biggest names in puzzle games", but then something occurred to me; what the hell are those names anyway? The puzzle genre, like the dating sim and now, sadly, the space shooter, is really niche. Aside from the ubiquitous Tetris, which can probably even be played on your refrigerator or something, what other games are in the puzzler big time here? If you asked this in Japan, you might get "Puyo Puyo" as a response. The long running series has spanned innumerable consoles and has seen almost as many iterations, and is pretty popular in the land of the Rising Sun; however, on this side of the pond, more people would recognize a non-descript cell phone Tetris ripoff than the venerable series. Puyo Pop Fever, Sega's latest release on the Nintendo GameCube, is their newest attempt to hook the masses on blob-smashing, puzzle-style. With the legendary Sonic Team taking over development from Compile, this new Puyo game sports some snazzy new visuals and some interesting new gameplay mechanics. Can Sega finally put Puyo Puyo over in America with Fever? Probably not, but damned if they didn't try.

Puyo Pop Fever seems at first to be just another release in the series, but all three of you experienced Puyo fans out there will recognize something drastically different about this game when you pop it into your 'Cube; this time around, Puyo pieces can be comprised of up to 4 blobs arranged in any shape as opposed to the traditional two-blob pieces. Sure, it's not like this is going to cure world hunger or cause Franz Ferdinand to sell more records than Linkin Park, but it's a significant change nonetheless - especially when it comes to setting up and executing chains...and like all the Puyo games before it, chains are the name of the game. Puyo Pop Fever revolves around the simple, Columns-esque mechanic of connecting matching groups of colored Puyo pieces together to wipe them off the playing field. Doing that is simple enough, but the real trick is to set pieces up in such a way as to cause the rows on top to slide together and form additional matching rows to delete; in so doing, you create chains that send Nuisance Puyos over to the opponent's playfield that can fill it up and knock them out with the quickness. Trading combo attacks with the opponent keeps you on your toes and keeps things really fun, and what's more fun than dropping a big pile of failure on your opponent yourself?

Also new to the series is the titular Fever mode of play; in this mode, rows and columns of pieces are preassembled at the beginning, and your task is to solve the puzzle by figuring out and placing the piece necessary to clear out your playing field in one huge chain - and possibly KO your opponent with one big trashing. As a single player mode, it's merely a diversion; however, in a two-player game, or even in a game versus the computer, Fever Mode becomes the great equalizer since clearing away enough Nuisance Puyos initiates a Fever attack attempt for the player. If the player's successful, you can drop a ton of garbage on your foe; of course, if they manage to sweep away enough of the attack, they can counter with a Fever attempt of their own. The simple addition of possible larger pieces and the Fever mode changed Puyo Pop Fever from the average puzzle game to a game that can actually stand and match even Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo in terms of pure versus intensity and fun, which exposes the lone weakness in the gameplay - it's nowhere near as fun alone as it is with a second player. In single player mode, you can practice in Endless Puyo Pop mode or Fever Mode, play in the Classic mode, and tackle the Story mode, which really isn't so much a "story" as it is a reason to have disgustingly cute Japanese characters play Puyo Pop Fever. In two player mode though, things get pretty crazy when battling each other which more than makes the game worthwhile. In fact, the versus game is so fun that it's sort of crappy that Sonic Team didn't add a four player mode. I mean, that is what the 'Cube is made for, right? Four player would've rocked major face here; maybe it'll be in the sequel.

The graphics, like most puzzlers, aren't really bad or good; they're just sort of there, just doing the job well enough to avoid bathing your rods and cones in a deluge of suck, but not enough to make with any Xbox Ninja Gaiden-ish visual tricks either. Puyo Pop Fever does however do a nice job of updating the look of the series with 3D graphics...or at least, it does half a nice job. The various game modes, most notably the Story Mode, are rife with low-res sprites placed on top of equally low-res background images; it's almost as if the graphics were designed for the Game Boy Advance as opposed to the GameCube. Mind you, 2D for a puzzle game isn't out of the ordinary, but you'd think Sonic Team could've put a little more work into things. The game's story unfolds via static images as well, just when you thought the visual presentation couldn't be any more tired. Thankfully for fans of effort, the in-game graphics feature some nifty eye candy in the form of well-animated Puyo pieces and quality 3D effects after chain attacks and during Fever Mode. The music and sound would be totally unimpressive as a whole if not for the amazingly bad voicework; I didn't think it was possible to surpass Resident Evil in awfulness, but here we have voice acting that could actually cause clinical blindness...I found myself in awe of that. Do a favor to yourself and humanity, and mute your TV before playing this game. Turn on your iPod, hire a street performer to perform in your gameroom while you play, lure Courtney Love into singing with the promise of heroin and whiskey; anything is better than the in-game stuff.

So Sega's likely not going to make Puyo Pop any more popular with Puyo Pop Fever; with the gameplay still as solid as ever, and the versus play even better than its ever been, I think we can overlook that. A four player mode definitely would've been pretty money, but the extras and revamped gameplay Sonic Team added more than satisfies for the time being, despite the sub par presentation. If you're a hardcore puzzle fan that lives life at Level 9/High 5, or have a buddy to tangle with, Puyo Pop Fever is a worthy purchase for the GameCube. For $30, you can't do much better.