Puyo Puyo 7

n/a

Puyo Puyo 7
System(s): Nintendo DS, PSP, Wii
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sonic Team / H. A. N. D.
Genre: Platform
ESRB

Puyo Puyo 7 is the newly-released seventh installment in the Puyo Puyo series released on Nintendo DS on July 30, 2009, and scheduled for release on November 26, 2009 for PlayStation Portable and Wii. This game is endorsed by Erika Toda, following on from Sega's use of female Japanese stars to promote the series. The game introduces five new playable characters, as well as fourteen veterans. The name of the new protagonist character, Ringo Andou, is similar to the game's codename, Project RINGO. The main new gameplay mode Great Transformation is a variation on the previous three installments' Fever mode, which allows characters to take on child or adult forms, giving smaller or bigger puyo respectively.

Storyline

The game opens with a storm of Puyo falling down unto Earth, flooding a high school in its wake. Ringo Andou, a student who witnesses the flood is standing in awe when Arle Nadja appears out of nowhere. She offers to teach Ringo how to play Puyo Puyo and fight the many enemies with her skill. However, Ringo has an amazing talent: she is able to transform into an adult or a child while playing the game, affecting the Puyo size in the process.

As the game progresses, Arle finds herself being possessed by a new adversary known only as Ekoro. When Ringo comes upon the newly-transformed Dark Arle, she defeats her, reverting her to normal. Ekoro, as dark-hearted as no one else is, decides to bury the universe in Puyos just for amusement. Ringo can only watch until Arle and Amitie team up with her to save the day. Ekoro is defeated, and everyone is unharmed.

Characters

Veteran characters are Arle Nadja, Carbuncle, Draco Centauros, Rulue, Satan, Schezo Wegey, Skeleton-T and Suketoudara from the Madou series (Draco and Skele-T were confirmed during development), and Amitie, Feli, Klug, Lemres, Raffine and Sig from the Fever series. New characters are described below.

Ringo Andou is the main protagonist of the game. She lives in yet another different universe to Arle and Amitie, and is taught how to play the game of Puyo by Arle when a horde of them flood her school. Her name means apple.

Maguro Sasaki is the fashionable eldest son of the fishmonger. He is really fashionable, but also quite weird. He has purple hair that covers his eyes. Being the fishmonger's son somewhat explains his weird name, which means tuna. He is never seen without his Kendama, which he wears around his neck, and his animations frequently feature it somehow.

Risukuma-senpai is an older student at his school and a former science club member. Three months ago, the science club room blew up after an experiment went wrong, and he is now in the middle of renting the physics club. He has the head of a teddy bear, and resembles a bear as well. In his older form, he is a butler, which may relate to Feli being a maid in her older form. His name is a portmanteau, with risu meaning squirrel and kuma meaning bear; senpai is an honourific for a senior.

Dark Arle is a secondary antagonist of this game. She is actually Arle possesed by Ekoro. She corresponds to Doppelganger Arle from Puyo Puyo~n.

Ekoro is a mysterious dark character appearing in the story mode. He is the main antagonist of the game. He is equivalent to Popoi from Puyo Pop Fever. He has a question mark on his head, and is able to shapeshift.

Gameplay

There are five modes of gameplay used in Free Battle games:

Puyo Puyo Great Transformation The main focus of the game. In this mode, the player's character can transform into a child or an adult. In the former case, the board size increases to 10x18 and becomes similar to Fever mode with a maximum of 47 chains. In the latter case, it decreases to 3x6 and becomes similar to 15th Anniversary's Giant Puyo mode, where the player can keep making chains until their time runs out, which continually increase in score.

Puyo Puyo Fever This is Fever mode. It is identical to the mode in 15th Anniversary.

Puyo Puyo 2

This mode emulates the gameplay of Puyo Puyo Tsu.

Puyo Puyo

This mode emulates quite accurately the gameplay of original Puyo Puyo.

Mission Puyo In mission mode, the player is given a task which they must complete before their opponents. This mode is named after the Puyo Puyo spinoff game released in 1993.

The story mode focuses mainly on the first mode, but has a small number of Fever, 2 and Mission games in addition.

The first three modes are also available for multiplayer games over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary offers the middle three instead.

Trivia

• When Klug enters his adult take-on in Transformation mode, he turns into Strange Klug, the result of his possession by his own book, previously seen in Puyo Puyo Fever 2.

• Arle's adult outfit is a combination of her Yon and Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary oufits.

• Arle and Carbuncle are separately playable for the first time since Puyo Pop Fever.

• Skeleton-T has two personifications by his side: one to represent his adult form, and one for his child form. When he enters Transformation mode, either one of these two characters take his place.

• When Dark Arle enters Transformation mode, she does not transform at all. Rather, her robe changes to the color of the last Puyo cleared. (Carbuncle does not transform either.)

• Ekoro is able to shapeshift into Ringo when outside Transformation mode, and can transform into either Lemres, Feli, or Klug when he enters Transformation mode.

• There is another version of Carbuncle who appears alongside Dark Arle in her animations.

Production Credits

Executive Supervisors: Takayuki Kawagoe, Naoya Tsurumi, Masanao Maeda
Executive Producer: Okitane Usui
Chief Producers: Akinori Nishiyama, Toshihiro Nagoshi, Hiroyuki Miyazaki
Producer: Mizuki Hosoyamada
Director: Takumi Yoshinaga
Supervisors: Masatoshi Nakamura, Tomokazu Tochi
Art Director: Akira Mikame
Technical Director: Atsutoshi Takahashi
Sound Director: Hideki Abe
Game Designer: Takako Nagase, Kohei Takeda
Artists: Keiko Suzuki, Hitomi Nagao, Wakana Narita, Keisuke Watanabe
Music Composer: Masaru Setsumaru
Interface Artist: Taro Hino
Background Artist: Miho Takayanagi
Puyopuyo Base Programmer: Masafumi Uchida
Web Artists: Yuichi Kikuchi, Masakazu Hoshino

In Corperation With: H. A. N. D.

Exective Managers: Teruaki Matoba, Toshinori Imata, Yukihiro Akashi
Managers: Keigo Yasuda, Satoshi Mikami
Assistant Manager: Kosaku Kawamoto
Chief Programmer: Takashi Azuma
Programmer: Yukio Takeoka, Taku Nakayama, Katsuhiko Kii, Shota Nakano
Planner: Takaoki Usijima
Chief Artist: Ichiro Muto
Artists: Minoru Noda, Miki Shimada, Takashi Sakamoto, Tetuya Oshouji, Ayumi Kawamura, Emi Yoshida, Misato Aburaya, Hitoshi Muto, Aya Kanabe, Chiho Hamada, Mai Mizukudo, Kana Sakai, Tetsuya Kobayashi, Yuriko Takahashi
Development Test: Aya Tsunemi, Yukiko Yamagami
Special Thanks: Kaname Fujii, Mikiko Kawauchi, Ayaka Sugawara, Akihiro Takanami, Naoki Kudo, Fumihiko Itagaki, Atsuo Nagata
Voice Actor: Shiho Kikuchi, Mie Sonozaki, Asami Iami, Yuriko Fuchizaki, Noriko Namiki, Hisayoshi Suganuma, Tamaki Nakanishi, Masakazu Morita, Chikara Ousaka, Kanako Kondo, Yukie Maeda, Takumi Yamazaki, Kenichi Ono, Yuki Ishikari, Kaori Nazuka, Akira Ishida
Voice Coordinator: Junichi Mizumura (Remax)
Voice Recording Engineers: Naoyuki Machida, Shinya Tsuruta

Sega Corperation

Project Manager: Takeshi Shimizu
Sales Promtion: Misuru Takahashi, Takafumi Ueoro, Takeshi Oosaki
Pubilcity: Yasushi Nagumo, Reiko Chiba
Retail Sales: Akira Nomoto, Koji Nagata, Nobuhiro Tanaka
Project Support: Seijiro Sannabe, Yasushi Yamashita, Junichiro Takahashi, Yusuke Aoki
Package & Manual Production: Yoshihiro Sakuta, Toshiki Yamaguchi, Masaru Kobayashi
Product Test: Jubichi Shimizu, Osamu Sato, Masato Shimamura, Yuichi Takeuchi, Keisuke Ito, Yutaka Ikgami
QA Test: Seiji Hasegawa, Sunao Muryama, Yoshihiro Narumi
Special Thanks: Osamu Ohashi, Takashi Iizuka, Shinobu Yokota, Mayumi Moro, Erika Toda