This chost has actually been sitting in my drafts for close to a year. It originally conveyed the challenges I felt were continuing to hamper Puyo's continued growth in the west. I never finished editing the original draft because I felt that the thesis was too reactionary.
Essentially, it's easy to point out the issues plaguing the series, and the topic is already well-trodden elsewhere [1], [2]. And Sega does listen to this feedback and incorporate it little by little in subsequent games. The problem with this whack-a-mole approach is that it doesn't solve the fundamental problems with Puyo. Metaphorically, it's like trying to scoop out the water in a sinking ship without plugging the holes causing the leaks in the first place.
I don't want to cover the issues with the gameplay and online here, mostly because I don't have good solutions for them at the moment. Instead I want to focus specifically on the presentation of Puyo Puyo: how it's differentiated from its peers, how it's packaged, and how it's marketed.
What I feel has been plaguing Puyo's attempts at expanding in the west is an inability on Sega's part to grasp what its core pillars of strength are among the western audience.
The Two Types of Puyo Superfans
There's two distinct sects in the hardcore community that's still stuck with Puyo Puyo today:
- Loreheads with deep knowledge of the story and worldbuilding spanning multiple media over several decades
- Master players who've climbed far up the skill curve of a deep, rewarding versus action puzzler
I wanted to get these two pillars out of the way first because, while important and differentiating, the potential audience for them is niche. Despite their small size, both these crowds must be catered to in every Puyo game because their words hold an outsized influence in the court of public opinion.
These two niches haven't always been on the best terms with each other (long ago on Puyo Nexus I once claimed nobody gave a shit about the lore -- I'm taking a mea culpa for that), but I think as a result of being completely starved in one game or another the fanbase has now learned to commiserate with each others' struggles.
On Puyo Puyo Tetris 2
While much maligned by a subset of the Puyo community, I think PPT2 is actually a very interesting case study on the broad appeal of Puyo Puyo. It released without the benefit of being a new console launch window game, and lacked the novelty of being the first crossover between Puyo and Tetris. And initial reception of PPT2 would have you believe the game was doomed to failure.
Something interesting happened in the intervening years, though: the game kept selling. In fact, after hitting the 1 million copies sold milestone in 2018, by the end of 2023 PPT as a spinoff has now sold over 3 million copies on its own.
Puyo Puyo is an Anime Game
A while ago, I was sitting in somebody's Twitch chat (I believe it was Nintendo World Champion John Numbers') when somebody wandered in asking him why he was playing PPT. After all, TETR.IO was the technically superior game, and Tetris Effect had broader publisher support for an official TTC game, right?
True facts, the chat explained, but the somebody was missing one important facet: Puyo Puyo Tetris had an anime aesthetic and the other two Tetris games didn't! That was all they needed to prefer PPT over the other Tetris games!
And it makes a lot of sense. When Hololive was looking to host a casual-competitive tournament, Puyo Puyo Tetris fit their aesthetic with high compatibility. When Puzzle Kingdom wanted to draw inspiration for its tournament flyers, it used famous anime promotional posters as references. That's the third pillar of Puyo Puyo.
How Puyo Puyo is Sold To The West
I know what you might be saying. "No shit Puyo Puyo is anime. Everybody knows that." But do they, really? If Puyo Puyo is anime, Why doesn't it come across in its marketing? Like, just look at the boxart of the past three console Puyo games*:
Nearly all of the brand's individuality has been stripped from the front covers. Likewise, compare the App Store listing for PPPP with other puzzle games I pulled off a Google search of "tile match puzzle games":
Nothing about that app store listing differentiates it from its competition, nor does it tell me anything about what the game is about. No wonder PPPP doesn't seem to have moved the needle much in terms of international interest.
SEGA's Brand Stewardship
What's especially frustrating about this misfire is that the original reason Puyo blew up in the first place in 1991 was because Moo Niitani recognized how important it was to feature the characters front and center in its graphic design! At some point since then, this knowledge was lost, and Sega grew fearful of letting the brand shine front and center, instead opting to release reskins, ports, and crossovers.
A decade ago, the Like A Dragon series was floundering outside of Japan. Taking after similar open-world games like Grand Theft Auto, the game was localized as Yakuza and much of its Japanese influences were cut during the localization process out of fear of alienating Western audiences. Putting development resources towards a higher quality localization seemed out of the question.
What changed the series' trajectory, however, was former Sega localization producer Scott Strichart pushing to faithfully adapt LAD with its Japanese quirkiness infact. Today, Like A Dragon is considered one of Sega's top international franchises. One day, I hope that Puyo Puyo can get the same kind of treatment.
