In 2021, IT Media's Netlab asked people what their favoite Puyo Puyo game was.
Over the course of a few weeks, they recorded 1523 valid responses and on August 29th, they showed their results. Below are the results, as well as some of my thoughts.
| Position | Game | Number of votes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Puyo Puyo 20th Anniversary | 318 |
| 2 | Puyo Puyo Tsu | 271 |
| 3 | Puyo Puyo Sun | 176 |
| 4 | Puyo Puyo 7 | 136 |
| 5 | Puyo Puyo Fever 2 | 131 |
| 6 | Puyo Puyo 15th Anniversary | 85 |
| 7 | Puyo Puyo Tetris | 74 |
| 8 | Puyo Puyo [1] | 69 |
| 9 | Puyo Puyo ~n | 59 |
| 10 | Puyo Pop Fever | 49 |
| 11 | Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 | 40 |
| 12 | Puyo Puyo Champions | 35 |
| 13 | Puyo Puyo Chronicle | 25 |
| 14 | Puyo Pop | 13 |
| Other Responses | 42 |
The top four are evenly split between Compile and Sega. For those that don't know, Compile made made the first few games (such as Puyo [1], Tsu, Sun, and ~n), while Sega made the rest. Tsu and Sun were Compile games while 20th and 7 were Sega games. Speaking of Sega era games...
Puyo Puyo 20th Anniversary is ranked as players most favorite game. I find that intresting because it beat out Puyo Puyo Tsu, which is a game that set the competitive standard for many of the games that came after it. It is also the only SEGA-era game that manages to beat out the highest Compile-era game in terms of being favorited.
This is the most interesting one, and is one of the main reasons for writing this article.
I find it interesting that Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 has more favorites than Puyo Puyo Champions. This is because fan reaction for Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 had a mixed response at launch, while Puyo Puyo Champions did not (from a gameplay perspective).
I find it even more interesting that Puyo Puyo Champions has more favorites than Puyo Puyo Chronicle. Puyo Puyo Champions, the competitive esport game, has more favorites than Chronicle, which was a full-featured "Anniversary style" game. This might have been due to the fact that the RPG story mode in Puyo Puyo Chronicle was criticized for being tedious and repetitive.
As far as I know, these two are some of the least favorited games. For those that don't know, Puyo Puyo Box (which does not appear on the results table) was a compilation game released in 2000 for the PS1, while Puyo Pop was a GBA game first released in 2001.
I suspect these two games are low (or don't even appear) on the results table because they are not as well remembered when compared to the others. SEGA often does not mention them, such as in this Puyo Puyo 7 Producer Column (in where the two games would have gone between Puyo Puyo ~n and Puyo Puyo Fever), and in the character bios in Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop.
