Genre: Puzzle
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega

Puyo Puyo Tetris has an incredible selection of stage backgrounds, and a significant number of-- admittedly cliche-- character designs, but they are all drawn in the kind of "this took me five minutes", "made in a graphics design sweat shop", Flash-like art style that users of shovelware mobile games will immediately recognize. It's easy to imagine how absurdly beautiful this game could have been with the kind of pixel art from, let's say, "Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine."

There is enough spasdic, Japanese synth techo music in this title to satisfy any otaku-- but for everyone else, it just sort of blurs together into "meh", like flour and water in a mixing bowl. The voice acting-- of which there is a ton, especially in the game's campaign mode-- is about what one would expect from the typical, localized "teenagers save the world" anime writing.

Puyo Puyo Tetris is replete with play modes, from straight-up score versions of the two titles, to four-player local coop madness, to fusion mode, which has both Puyo Puyo blobs and Tetris blocks on the board at the same time! During play, everything is a breeze to control. The only trouble is that the AI is excruciatingly difficult, and the game's only difficulty mechanic-- the ability to set a handicap-- is very nearly worthless.

If it weren't for its positively dreadful art style, debatable aural aesthetics, and relentless AI, Puyo Puyo Tetris would be an outstanding game. It has very nearly every style of play that a fan of either game could want, although this reviewer could have lived without the dialog-heavy, fan-fic like story mode. The game can shine when played with three other people-- but as a solo experience, it's found wanting.