Where do we go from here?

The Puyo Puyo world was rocked recently when a video emerged showing gamer and Twitter user Azu♀ (@as27msk) clearing an entire screen in a single combo — a 47 chain combo to be exact.

Some may be unfamiliar with the largely Japanese puzzle game franchise, but will no doubt be familiar with its mechanics that have been used in many other games. You must align little blobs called “puyo” in a Tetris-like fashion so that four of the same color are touching. When four of the same color connect they pop and disappear, causing the remaining puyos to fall.

Higher level players will be able to arrange the colors in such a way that when the remaining puyos descend, another chain of four colors will be created and cause the blobs to once again fall. Even higher level players can set things up in such away that this can be done repeatedly in a “chain combo.”

▼ A demonstration of a 17 chain combo

Setting up a mere 6 or 7 chain combo would be pretty impressive to most laymen and result in huge points. But I doubt anyone would be left unimpressed by this:

Azu♀ fills up the entire screen with puyo blobs until only two empty spots are left. While this would be instant doom for most players, they actually had all their pieces right where they wanted them. After the colorful dust settled, their score also jumped from 36,774 to 31,396,734.

Unlike some other similar puzzle games, Puyo Puyo allows players to stack puyos higher than the screen as long as they don’t block the place where new puyos appear, marked by two red Xs on the screen. Also, unlike other versions of Puyo Puyo, this one uses chibipuyo, which are smaller than regular puyo, allowing Azu♀ to fit more on the screen.

▼ Here’s a painful failed attempt, probably one of many.

The puyos that can’t be seen because they are off screen are referred to as “ghosts,” so not only did Azu♀ arrange all the pieces perfectly on the screen, they even had a few ghosts exactly in place to trigger the 47 chain combo and clear them all.

Azu♀ says the entire process took them 15 hours to pull of and they have no desire to do it again. Luckily the internet was there to offer them a firm pat on the back.

“Not just the feat, but the patience to figure it all out over 15 hours is amazing!”
“Pure magic!”
“That was beautiful.”
“Amazing work.”
“ULTRAAAAAAA COMBOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“That was very cool to watch. I want to try it.”

After witnessing that, we have to wonder if there’s anything left to do with Puyo Puyo. Perhaps the game should just be retired and we all move onto something else like freeze-tag or Chinese checkers. I guess someone could try to pull off that very same combo in competitive mode.

▼ Azu♀ (right, pink) vs Doremy (left, blue)

As you can see in the video above a match with Azu♀ does invlove continuous rallies of double digit chain combos. However, it would probably take a skill gap as wide as Azu♀ and my aunt who still refers to all video games as “Nintendos” to hit 47 that way.

Source: Twitter/@as27msk, Hachima Kiko
Featured image: Twitter/@as27msk