Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary

Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary (ぷよぷよ!) is a sub-story of the Puyo Puyo series, developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Wii. As with many other games in the series, it has not been released outside Japan for any consoles. This is the first Puyo Puyo game to be released on the Wii console.

Plot
Ms. Accord, the teacher at the Primp Magic School, informs Sig that there will be a tournament up for play, and everyone's competing; the reward is a medal that will grant anyone's single wish. Another scene shows Amitie and Arle pledging to play by the rules, and Sig, still as clueless as ever, eventually plegdes as well, but not before witnessing six comets fall down onto Earth. Sig, realising that this is a big discovery, decides to ignore it anyhow and goes onto the competition. It turns out that the "comets" are actually six familiar characters from the Madou series, who serve as boss characters in the story modes.

Characters
As ''Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary was created to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of Puyo Puyo, it includes most of the Fever characters plus six of the characters from the Madou'' series; they are said to have fallen from the sky into Primp Town, the primary setting of the Fever series games. There are a total of twenty-two characters in this game.

Gameplay
15th Anniversary has a slew of new modes, and also includes modes that emulate the original Puyo Puyo, Puyo Puyo Tsu and Puyo Pop Fever. In most cases, players are eliminated when he/she tops out, and the last player (or side) standing wins the round.


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


 * Puyo Puyo 2
 * This mode emulates the gameplay of Puyo Puyo Tsu.


 * Puyo Puyo Fever
 * This is Fever mode, similar to gameplay of Puyo Pop Fever and Puyo Puyo Fever 2, but with some small updates. The Fever counter is more rigid and actually represents the time that players have - when time expires, that time cannot be extended by the end of a chain. In addition, Fever time is now earned not when the opponent offsets but instead when the player makes a chain that does not offset.


 * Big Puyo
 * In this mode, Puyo are twice as large in both directions and the board itself is only 3 by 6 Puyo, a quarter of the normal board size. Less garbage is sent to opponents in this mode. The objective is simply to defeat all opponents.


 * Bomber
 * In this mode, instead of sending nuisance Puyo, players send bomb blocks, which explode after the user with them makes a certain number of moves and change all surrounding Puyo into Hard Puyo.


 * Endless Fever
 * In this mode, players start off with a Fever that does not end and a large number of pending Nuisance Puyo. They can't fall, however, so they are only there to be offset until one player finishes offsetting and overflows into the Fever trash galley of the opponents.


 * Excavation
 * In this mode, players start with a half-filled regular board. Hidden on the bottom row is a star, that, when popped, will send infinite garbage to all other opponents. The goal is to pop the Star Puyo and defeat the opponents. Once one player has popped the star, offsetting is no longer allowed, so if both players happen to get it at the same time, Nuisance Puyo will begin dropping with the next Puyo pair dropped.


 * Spinner
 * In this mode, the fields will rotate every 15 seconds. The counter acts similar to the Fever counter - when time expires, it waits for players to drop their last Puyo. When all players are idle after time expires, the boards spin 180 degrees and then gravity acts on the Puyos. A special bonus is given to chains that continue after or are started from the spin.


 * Ice Blocks
 * In this mode, instead of sending nuisance Puyos, players send frozen Puyo blocks, which become unfrozen after the player who has them makes 3 moves. Because of the nature of sending the other player Puyo blocks that have the ability to chain, this mode can turn around if the chain created by the original sender is not large enough to defeat the opponents.


 * Mission
 * In mission mode, players are given a task which they must complete before their opponents. The first player (or side) that completes 3 tasks before the opponents do wins the round.


 * Searchlight
 * In this mode, all the players' Puyo boards are only partially visible on the screen at any time (except during Fever mode). The visibility range is a cone, originating from the top of the screen and expanding downward, which is in a constant sway, lampooning a searchlight. This mode is difficult because it disorients proper placement of Puyos, or causes the player to have to slow down and wait for the searchlight to pass an area unknown to them in order to make proper chains.


 * Underwater
 * Water mode is a slow moving mode where players place Puyos into a body of water filled up to two Puyo. Puyo float in the water, making the mode in essence the same as placing Puyo at the bottom of a Puyo board. Because of the nature of this mode, Nuisance Puyos only fall in groups of 1 line. This prevents Nuisance Puyo from causing chains due to the unequal descent of the columns.

DS Version Multiplayer
The DS version of 15th Anniversary supports all multiplayer modes that the DS officially supports.

Everybody Puyo Puyo
In this mode, players without a copy of 15th Anniversary can play along with those that do. The only difference between playing with a copy and without a copy is that the download and play version does not contain voices or battle animations. The game is functionally compatible, for the most part. Therefore, both the DS Download and Play modes and direct connection modes are accessible from here.

Up to 8 players can play and in any mode that the number of players permits. However, for technical reasons (such as alternative drawing methods being used in 8-player mode to keep the game from lagging), you can only play Puyo Puyo, Puyo Puyo TSU, and Puyo Puyo Fever modes in games with more than four players.

WiFi
In this mode, you can use Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to verse players across the internet. WiFi mode supports only 3 modes (Puyo Puyo, Puyo Puyo 2, and Puyo Puyo Fever). You can play games of between two and four players, either with your friends using the Friend Code system or against random opponents. When playing random games, three-player mode and the original Puyo Puyo rules are not available, and you can earn (or lose!) points if playing a two-player game.

Issues
Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary for the DS had several issues.

Saving
In the original release of Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary, a bug existed where data would could not be saved more than 255 times. A new version, nicknamed 1.1, was released to solve the problem on January 20, 2007. Information on how to find out the game version and instructions on how to get replacement can be found on Sega's website.

WiFi
In both of these versions existed yet another bug, this one effecting WiFi. When a player disconnected, both lost points. A new version was released to solve this problem.

Fever meter bug
While playing multiplayer games, the fever meter will occasionally freeze on 7 points without letting you into fever mode. It will subsequently let you in after your next move, but this may be deadly depending on the circumstances. This bug can also be seen in version 2.00 of the PC version of Puyo Pop Fever.

Trivia

 * A new garbage symbol was added (comet/1440 garbage). This symbol became staple in future Puyo Puyo games.