Sega's Rieko Kodama, Yosuke Okunari & Mizuki Hosoyamada and M2's Naoki Horii talk Sega Ages Puyo Puyo Tsu, out this week on the 🇯🇵 Switch eShop
even though the AC & MD versions seem identical to casual players, core players want the AC Puyo games, especially Tsu, so Hosoyamada has always pushed to keep it in print; when the Wii VC team brought Tsu to VC with netplay, fans were grateful, but that service has ended and...
…even as they brought the game to 3DS, released Puyo Champions which is essentially a Tsu remake, etc ppl continued to run tournaments on Tsu cabinets & the requests for reissues on new hardware with netplay never slowed down, so they announced Tsu for Sega Ages last December…
…but it's taken well over a year to make it happen, and even as other versions like the OG Puyo on Sega Ages, Super Puyo Tsu on NSO, etc have rolled out, they've felt the pressure to get AC Tsu out as soon as possible because they know that for a lot of ppl, Tsu is /the/ game
Hosoyamada acknowledges & respects the fact that some tournament will always run Tsu even with eSports in arcades; Okunara draws a parallel to Smash players and how even in the face of newer & subjectively "better" versions, there'll always be diehards playing Melee on Gamecube
there's some talk on the early history of Puyo; Sega was directly involved with the first arcade game, helping with the vs. CPU modes & sharing code from Columns for reference, so the AC & MD port cemented the game & paved the way for the SFC port which apparently sold like crazy
all that set the stage for Tsu, which was an even bigger hit in arcades, did great on MD, helped push Game Gear & sold like crazy once again on SFC
M2's Matsuoka, formerly of Compile, worked on the arcade sequel, Sun, & has talked about how one-upping Tsu was nigh impossible
M2's Matsuoka, formerly of Compile, worked on the arcade sequel, Sun, & has talked about how one-upping Tsu was nigh impossible
Compile & Sega had a strong relationship since the SG1000 days so Sega tried to prop them up when they were having business troubles but they eventually went under; Sega ended up owning the game & put out the call to their internal teams to take over, to which Yuji Naka accepted
some felt the vs. puzzle game boom was over but Sonic Team & Naka in particular felt Puyo was a strong game worth maintaining & it fit with their desire to go all-ages & multiplatform, as Compile had traditionally released their Puyo games on every platform possible
2003's Puyo Fever ended up being Sonic Team's first multiplatform game & its success gave them the confidence to continue the series on their own
Hosoyamada joined Sonic Team around then but was working on other games like the overseas version of Billy Hatcher & Sonic Battle
Hosoyamada joined Sonic Team around then but was working on other games like the overseas version of Billy Hatcher & Sonic Battle
Puyo Fever 2 came out later and while it had a lot of fanservice for Fever fans it wasn't really a mainstream game & didn't do so well, so Hosoyamada joined the team for Puyo 15th Anniversary and has been working on the series ever since; some ex-Compile ppl came on board as well
at that time, a lot of hardcore Puyo players were centered on the PC version of Fever but, even though it had a Tsu game mode, it wasn't providing the accurate arcade experience they demanded so they continued to play the arcade version, which prompted the later Wii VC release
(I'm really condensing a lot of this history talk, the interviewer is urging them to move on at this point as well so they can get to the new release)
M2's first time touching Puyo was for the Wii Virtual Console; they did the two MD ports first, then the arcade versions including Tsu with netplay, which got a big response
in the year since OG Puyo hit Sega Ages, they've been working on the netcode so it should be better now
in the year since OG Puyo hit Sega Ages, they've been working on the netcode so it should be better now
describing what they've actually done to improve the experience is difficult; essentially, it's just more accurate emulation and trying to better replicate the feel of AC Tsu in the ways longtime players often feel but can't articulate, that can't be understood by looking at code
even Jemini Hironi, the person who programmed Tsu for both AC & MD, couldn't really explain why emulated or ported versions sometimes "felt" off, or why the MD version doesn't "feel" like the AC version despite running the same code on extremely similar hardware
as for new features, they've modified the rewind feature introduced with Sega Ages Gain Ground and Shinobi specifically for this game: you can manually rewind second by second, and go back as far as a minute
they've also added a new very easy AI setting & a 3-color puyo option
they've also added a new very easy AI setting & a 3-color puyo option
the new puyo colour setting actually took a ton of work due to the original hardware's palette restrictions, but they were able to implement several presets as well as options to dim the background or choose between OG Puyo and Tsu designs, which are slightly different
M2 proposed the idea for color options but Kodama had recently been researching design theory with regards to colourblindness within Sega, so they were able to work in tandem and test the game with a lot of employees who suffer from colourblindness in order to maximise visibility
unfortunately, it seems like the restrictions of the original hardware meant they couldn't implement different colours for 1P & 2P—online play's fine as each player sees whichever colours they have set, but local play's restricted to one set of colours for both sides
the new Sega Ages credits screen features animations of the characters walking that weren't present in the original game; they were animated from scratch by a former Compile artist who works at M2 (get the game to see them in motion!) 
Hosoyamada's asked about how Sega Ages Tsu plays into their eSports initiative; Tsu's going to be eligible for player rankings but they don't have anything specific planned, and the guidelines around grassroots use are loose, so they'd be happy for ppl to hold their own events
as they sign off, they reiterate how AC Tsu on Wii VC was a massive breakthrough for them & one of their most cherished accomplishments, so they tried to advance Sega Ages Tsu the same way they advanced Wii VC with Tsu back in the day & really sweated the little details
(oh and the interviewer asks about netcode again and they stress that it's improved over OG Puyo, let's hope they're right)
oh, and some postscript: they made a point of showing that the overseas manual includes a ton of tutorial content, including video demonstrations
"could a new age of ferocious overseas players sending shockwaves through the eSports scene soon be upon us?"
"could a new age of ferocious overseas players sending shockwaves through the eSports scene soon be upon us?"
...and that's it, it's 5am here & I'm lying awake due to neck pain so if I screwed anything up or missed anything, my bad
one more one more thing that probably won't mean much to most of you: they bring up how the director on M2's side is a rookie named Yamanaka and I didn't think much of it at the time but I'm pretty sure they're talking about Masato Yamanaka, the Garegga superplayer
