I like to play other related games to coincide with getting the new latest game in a series. In this case, I knew Yoshi’s New Island was on the way so I went after the number 1 most Yoshi’s Island-style game, the very inaptly named Tetris Attack. The name seems to be cashing in on the Tetris craze that sweeped the world, despite the fact that the Panel de Pon/Puzzle League games are nothing like Tetris besides being dynamic puzzle games. This title (and the Western boxart) also give no indication of the Yoshi branding, which makes the game insanely colourful and fun to look at. So badly named all around.

You may be aware that this game is a reskin of the Japanese original, Panel de Pon. It featured flowery fairies that I guess wouldn’t fly with the young male demographic. Yoshi’s still cute, but not that cute. They ported it to Game Boy too, which is nice and retains the same gameplay and features, with its own visual flairs that are still nowhere near the colourful frenzy of the SNES version. The GB one retained its Yoshi-ness when returned to Japan, and gained the name Yoshi’s Panepon, which is probably the most correct title, which is why I used it on this post (even though I played the English version). The Yoshi SNES version made its way over there eventually too, on the SNES satellite addon the Satellaview.

Unlike the other two Yoshi puzzle games, Yoshi/Mario & Yoshi/Yoshi’s Egg (NES and GB), and Yoshi’s Cookie (NES, GB, SNES, and SNES rerelease with extra stuff to promote some oven or something…), this game is Yoshi’s Island through and through. No adult Mario, no Mario enemies, just pure Island stuff. I couldn’t be happier to just take in all the framing. You get cute little sprites and more lavish backgrounds of Poochy, Raphael the Raven, Prince Froggy, all the favourites.

As for the gameplay though, I struggled to get the hang of it. Compared to other tile matching games I’ve played, the control is quite limited. You are only able to switch two tiles horizontally at a time, and try to create lines and combos. Combos are essential as the difficulty climbs in later stages, and it’s just something I just found got too hard too quickly. The learning curve seemed very steep: I was all easy, easy, easy, UGH I lose so quickly now! Luckily there’s lots of modes so when one part got too tough in the clear stages mode, I could switch to puzzle or versus and continue there for a bit.

Ultimately the difficulty and limited control meant the game’s appeal didn’t last that long for me. I absolutely love the Yoshi’s Island style and this game does a great job of bringing that across. But I got frustrated at the gameplay, which made me stop before really reaching the ending. I came for the Yoshi but didn’t stay for the gameplay. Is that a good soundbite? Eh, probably not.

But it does bring up a problem I have with some more recent sanitised Nintendo releases: the next Puzzle League games were a paired Pokemon set on N64 and GBC (based on the anime actually, a tradition of sorts in games after Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine co-opted Puyo Puyo Pop with branding from the Sonic cartoon… but I digress). And the GCN’s Puzzle Collection featured a straight-up sequel to Lip’s Panel de Pon. But since then there’ve been two releases for GBA and DS that are basic and bland, without any series stamped on them. This means the game is forced to stand on its gameplay alone which as I asserted is not that compelling. There’s a reason I bought Tetris DS and not Tetris Party, and it wasn’t the online multiplayer. And with that, I’m off!