Puyo Puyo 2

About Puyo Puyo 2

Puyo Puyo 2 (1994), or Puyo Puyo Tsū, is Compile's sequel that introduced offsetting, letting players cancel incoming garbage with their own chains, and became Japan's biggest arcade hit since Street Fighter II.

Puyo Puyo 2 in Depth

As before, Puyo fall in pairs that can be moved and rotated, and the game ends if the third column from the left fills to the top. The key new rule is offsetting, or sōsai: a player can counter and cancel incoming garbage Puyo with chains of their own, and even send the excess back to the opponent. Alongside standard garbage come Point Puyos, which add to the score and briefly strengthen chains when cleared beside other groups, and Hard Puyos, nicknamed Steelies, which are harder to clear. A custom rule, rensa shibari, can make chains below a set length score nothing and send no garbage. Chains were rebalanced to do less damage than in the first game, making comebacks more likely, and the rules created longer, better matches.

In the story mode, the Dark Prince builds a battle tower to steal both Arle Nadja's heart and Carbuncle, and Arle must beat an opponent on each floor, her bonus points working like experience. There are single, double and endless modes, five preset rule sets for versus play and custom rules. The Super Famicom version, Super Puyo Puyo 2, added a four-player mode with a multitap, Compile's first on a home console, and a later Remix edition allowed four players without one by filling in computer opponents. The name is an English pun: tsū, meaning expert, sounds like "two".

Making Puyo Puyo 2

Compile developed it, and Sega released it in arcades in 1994, where Game Machine listed it as Japan's fourth most successful table arcade unit that November; it became the biggest arcade game in Japan since Street Fighter II and the most prominent game in the series. Its success led Compile to port it to the Super Famicom, Mega Drive, PC Engine, Game Boy, Game Gear, Saturn, PlayStation, Windows 95, WonderSwan, Neo Geo Pocket Color and PlayStation 2, among others, with the CD versions adding voices and cut-scenes. Sega later paid tribute with Sega Ages 2500 Vol. 12: Puyo Puyo 2 Perfect Set, M2 included it in the 3DS Sega 3D Classics Collection, and it returned on Switch as Sega Ages Puyo Puyo 2 in 2019.