Retro Review: Pokemon Puzzle League

You may be thinking that Pokemon Puzzle League is a mediocre Pokemon spin-off game. It shouldn’t be thought of as a Pokemon game, as it has nothing to do with the popular franchise. What you get is an entertaining puzzle game that excels in multiplayer.

The gameplay is like that of Tetris Attack or Planet Puzzle League. The player’s screen is filled with different types of blocks, and the player must line up 3 or more of the same type of block in a row to cause the blocks to disappear. Combos of more than 3 will “attack” the opponent by putting a large rectangular block on their screen. These large blocks can be turned into normal blocks by making a combo that touches them. In single player and multiplayer this leads to very intense and exciting matches.

There are a number of single player game modes to keep you busy. The 1P stadium is the standard one-player mode, which pits you against a variety of characters from the TV show in five different difficulty levels. While it starts off easy, the last few matches on hard are quite challenging, but give you a sense of satisfaction when you claim victory. The Time Zone mode gives you 2 minutes to score as many points as you can, and is a decent side game. The Marathon mode allows you to select a difficulty and a starting speed and see how long you can last for as the speed at which the blocks move up gradually increases. Spa Service is a mode where the player has to get the blocks down below a pre-determined line to advance past the stage. Finally, the Puzzle University mode forces the player to eliminate all the blocks in a certain number of moves. This provides a good break from the main gameplay, and can get quite challenging.

The game has some decent music, especially the remix of the TV theme song that plays while you choose the settings for a game. My one complaint in the audio department is the use of catchphrases or other sayings for the characters. Each character has about three phrases they say based on various actions. Some are entertaining at first, but after a while you get completely sick of them.

Overall, Pokemon Puzzle League is a very well done puzzle game with an excellent multiplayer component. It is an excellent addition to any N64 library.