I tried Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop recently...

[Belva Company]

So, what are my thoughts on the Apple Arcade exclusive game that is Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop? Instead of making the app a one-time purchase, it's locked to a subscription service that (thankfully) has no in-app purchases, but I have to keep subscribing if I want to play the game. It's a good thing that I kept my Apple Arcade trial until I wanted to try this game out. Please, don't end up like Chu Chu Rocket! Universe, another Apple Arcade game from Sega that got delisted and was never ported.

It's nice that we got a game featuring the character models from Puyo Puyo Chronicle. The default touch controls may require getting some used to, but it has the option to sync a gamepad to it. There's so many modes and customization options! The story gives me a couple of laughs, too, with such oddball character matchups interacting with each other. The game runs fine on my outdated iPhone 7.

The online multiplayer, though... oh my goodness, people were right! The randoms in online really are bots with usernames of adjective nouns masquerading as players. It becomes really obvious, too. There's been times when after I fill my opponent's screen up too much, my opponent would start mashing the rotate buttons. Plus, when I go to the home menu while the time limit is counting down, the time limit pauses along with the app too, it seems. Multiplayer lets you choose from Beginner, Intermediate and Expert, and AFAIK, you can't change that category later on, at least I haven't figured it out yet.

Basically, good single player, but bad/fake(?) online multi player.

At this point, I have my doubts about Sega making a new full fledged standalone Puyo Puyo title, after both Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 doing worse than its predecessor sales wise, and Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop being an Apple Arcade exclusive, and that's even speaking as an iOS user.