It’s probably not total coincidence that with each of the major handhelds I’ve owned over the years, my first addictions have been puzzle games. The culprits, over the years: the portable version of Columns on the Game Gear (look, I was 11, I didn’t know any better!), Tetris (an addiction I still haven’t kicked, by the way), Lumines on the PlayStation Portable, and now Puyo Pop Fever on the Nintendo DS.

It’s also probably not total coincidence that I owned both my Game Boy and my DS for many months before being exposed to an addiction-worthy title on either platform. I suspect, however, that in the case of the Game Boy, it was merely a search for identity and definition and not, as in the case of the DS, just a total wasteland as far as any worthwhile software goes.

And that’s too bad, really; Puyo Pop Fever, while really not all that different from the Puyo that went before, deserves better than to be known as “The Best of a Mediocre Lot.” The problem is, in the kingdom of the blind, sometimes having both eyes is a little bit superfluous.

The concept is a simple one, familiar to Tetriphiles the world over: stuff falls from the sky, and you have to arrange it in order to keep your playing space neat and tidy. Same basic idea as Tetris and Lumines, just executed a little bit differently. Rather than clearing lines, as in Tetris, or foursquares, as in Lumines, Fever drops different-colored jelly blobs in various shapes, and you can play these any way you like, so long as you clear chains of three blocks or greater.

It’s also possible to chain multiple combos together, and proficiency at doing so triggers the “Fever” to which the title alludes. Basically, the Puyo Pop Fever is a brief interlude where you have a nicely arranged block of color patterns, and you’re given conveniently shaped pieces designed to allow you to chain long combos together, to the woe and detriment of your opponent. You’re given a time limit, but the better you do, the more time you have to drop wiggling, blobby death on your opponent’s head.

Puyo Pop Fever also makes decent use of the touchscreen abilities of the DS. If you're the sort that has to use the touchscreen feature in every game, just because it's there, you'll appreciate the fact that you can move your falling blocks by dragging your stylus in the appropriate direction across the screen. You can rotate the blocks by tapping on the left side or the right side of the screen, depending upon which direction you want to rotate.

So there’s that. If you play through the Story Mode, you’ll come across progressively more talented AI. The early, easy matches will fade to a fond memory as you furiously struggle for survival against some of your later foes. That, mind, is just when there are two players involved.

It’s actually possible to get up to eight players involved, in any mixture of human and computer opponents. That’s right – you and seven of your closest DS-toting pals can throw down in a Puyo fight that the world will long remember. Or not, really, but it’s nice to think about, isn’t it?

Here’s where it really gets good: while Puyo Pop Fever doesn’t support online WiFi play, it does allow all eight human combatants to get their Puyo on with a single DS Game Card. I’m sitting here quivering just thinking about it. No, really. I am. This is where two screens really comes in handy – can you imagine, for example, trying to have an eight-player Lumines-fest? You could do it as a tournament, I suppose, but not as an eight-man melee.

The graphics aren’t going to blow you out of your socks, but the bright colors are really all you need, unless you happen to be color-blind (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I guess the frantically dancing kids are cool, but how much time are you really going to be spending paying attention to details like that, anyway?

The sound, on the other hand, sounds like a bad Ashlee Simpson joke waiting to happen. The voice acting is entirely too saccharine to be legal, and the fact that it has the added bonus of making you feel like an idiot for playing an otherwise excellent game in the first place is quite possibly the best reason I’ve ever seen to turn the volume all the way down. The music is fine, mind you, but the voices are just that atrocious.

Look, I’ll sum up by repeating what I’ve been saying since I first laid eyes on the systems: the PSP is a nifty piece of hardware, and will undoubtedly have its share of compelling games, but the software possibilities with the DS excite me to no end. That’s why it depresses me so much that very nearly the only games that have been able to take advantage of the DS in any significant way have been puzzle games. I know there’s more potential than that buried beneath the silver (or, I guess, electric blue) finish of the DS.

Stout competition or otherwise, though, with eight-player action on a single card, Puyo Pop Fever is not only the best DS game I’ve yet played, it’s also far and away the best value on the platform. If you’re looking for some eight-player mayhem, go pick up Puyo Pop Fever, and thank Atlus for taking a chance on the game.