Puyo Puyo

Puyo Puyo is a competitive puzzle game where players arrange falling colored blobs. The core objective is to connect groups of at least four matching colors, which clears them and sends obstructive garbage blocks to an opponent's field. More complex maneuvers, such as triggering chain reactions or clearing multiple groups simultaneously, increase the amount of garbage sent. A match ends when a player's stack reaches the top of their screen.

The arcade version established the series' standard format, shifting from a solo experience to a versus-focused design. It features a story mode where a sorceress battles through twelve opponents to confront a final boss, with gameplay that becomes progressively challenging as the falling speed increases. Each computer-controlled opponent employs a distinct play style. For practice, players can engage a training mode or start from a later stage.

Home console ports retained these modes while reintroducing an endless solo mode for high score pursuit, absent of opponents and garbage blocks. A unique quest mode was added to the Game Gear release, presenting specific puzzles on pre-arranged boards that require tasks like clearing a set number of puyos or eliminating all of a certain color, with progress tracked via passwords.