Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S review — Sharing is, quite literally, caring

The Nintendo Switch 2 launch period has been a delightful endeavor. A lot of games new to Nintendo players or folks revisiting favorites is the name of the game here. Sega was all in at launch and PuyoPuyo Tetris 2S was one of the only puzzle games to be there with Switch 2 features to boot. The colorful collab is back with a few new twists and turns, but are you ready to double dip?

Puyo Puyo Tetris came to the West a little later than the Japanese release but early on in the Switch’s life, being one of the first major puzzle game releases for the console. Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S looks to recreate that magic by giving the 2020 sequel some new features, so a majority of the content here isn’t new. From the fully voiced story mode featuring tons of cute characters, a ton of multiplayer and party modes, and probably the biggest addition - GameShare.

While I will sing the praises of GameShare momentarily, there are some other features here that deserve some mention. There are a few different options for players with colorblindness which is wonderful, given the bright stylings of the Puyos and Tetrominos. There’s also a new mouse mode control scheme and, being up front, this is cute and I’d love to see four Puyo pros duke it out in a multiplayer session using it - but buttons work and that’s what I stuck to. The mouse never felt like I could be precise with where I wanted pieces to go and pulling the control stick toward the player for faster drops, not instant drops, felt uncomfortable.

One of the most underrated features of the Switch 2 has been its ability to play games together locally and online, harkening back to the days of riding the bus to school and playing Mario Kart DS Download Play. For those unfamiliar - GameShare allows you to play one copy of the game with multiple systems for multiplayer. I explain this because it’s probably the best part of this new version of Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S.

Like previous games in the series, you are given the option to hop directly into a game of Puyo, Tetris, and now GameShare. Join in a GameChat session with your friends and you can access six modes, ranging from the standard versus where you pick your favorite character and puzzle type. Maybe something a bit more silly; there’s also the party mode where clearing lines of blobs or blocks gives you different boosts or enemy debuffs. There’s even options now for 2v2 doubles matches.

After gathering a group of puzzle game aficionados and fresh faces alike, we took the modes on offer for a test drive given that this is the real meat of the game. While versus mode was a pretty open and close case for skilled players going up against newbies, there was still fun to be had as we voice chatted in GameChat while all laughing at the combos we see happening in real time before they get crushed under a pile of garbage.

We had way more fun when it came to the Party Mode as the items and debuffs you could get actually leveled the playing field so much so that a first time player came out on top by the end. Not having played these games in a group setting before, it’s actually more fun than I realized. It was a chaotic mess with pieces not being able to rotate, drop speeds doubling, and way more. It’s frantic, chaotic, and I kinda love that about it.

But if multiplayer isn’t your fancy, there’s still an entire tongue-in-cheek story mode. The auto -text speed is way too slow but the story and characters don’t take themselves too seriously with random lines thrown in just to make you laugh. It’s a silly mode and there’s fun to be had but I’m not sure if it’s something most players would be down for. There are a number of encounters with the stuffed cast, so stretching out the gag for so long comes across - as the game puts it - “daunting.” Definitely worth checking out at least, but long term, I think multiplayer is still the way to go.

While I was going into this certainly expecting Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 but with some extra bells and whistles, I don’t think it even reached that. It got a bell and a whistle, but only the bell is really worth the time. While still a fantastic puzzle game at its core, I think PPT2S falls short as an enhanced version of a five year old game. With no upgrade path, you might be waiting for this one on a sale. The addition of GameShare is all there really is to care about in this one.