Puyo Puyo 7

Puyo Puyo 7 is the seventh installment in the Puyo Puyo series for the Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii. Released in 2009 in Japan and North America, while in Europe in 2009 for DS and 2010 for the rest of the systems.

The staple gameplay mode, Great Transformation, allows characters to take on child or adult forms, giving smaller or bigger puyo respectively.

Plot
The game opens with a storm of Puyo falling down onto Earth, flooding a high school in its wake. Ringo Ando, a student who witnesses the flood, trembles until Arle Nadja appears. She teaches Ringo how to play Puyo Puyo and fight the many enemies with her skill. Arle soon finds herself being endangered and runs off, and Ringo sets out to find her, encountering old and new friends and rivals, using a special ability: she is able to transform into an adult or a child while playing the game, affecting the Puyo size in the process.

After a match with Klug, Ringo decides that in order to solve the problem, she must travel to seven power spots of the planet, encountering the strongest opponents. During the trek, she discovered that Arle has become possessed by a new adversary, Ecolo. When Ringo comes upon the newly transformed Dark Arle, she defeats her, reverting her to normal. Ecolo decides to bury the universe in Puyos just for amusement. Ringo, Arle, and Amitie team up with her to save the day. Ecolo is defeated, and everyone returns home.

Characters
While 14 characters from previous series appear, five new characters debut:


 * Ringo Ando
 * Ringo is the intelligent main protagonist of the game. She lives in yet another different universe to Arle and Amitie, and is taught how to play the game of Puyo by Arle when a horde of them flood her school. Her name means apple.


 * Maguro Sasaki
 * This Suzuran Shopping District's resident is the son of a fishmonger and Ringo's friend. He is very fashionable, but also quite weird. He has purple hair that covers his eyes. Being the fishmonger's son explains his name, which means tuna. He is never seen without a Kendama, which he wears around his neck, and his animations frequently feature it.


 * Risukuma
 * Risukuma is an older student at his school and a former science club member. Three months ago, the science club room blew up after an experiment went wrong, and he is now in the middle of renting the physics club. He has the head of a teddy bear, and resembles a bear as well. His name is a portmanteau, with risu meaning squirrel and kuma meaning bear; senpai is an honorific for a senior.


 * Dark Arle
 * Ecolo possessing Arle. Dark Arle corresponds to Doppelganger Arle from Puyo Puyo~n.


 * Ecolo
 * The main antagonist of the game, and the one responsible for flooding Ringo's world with Puyos. He is equivalent to Popoi from Puyo Pop Fever. He has a question mark on his head, and is able to shapeshift into shadowy versions of the characters. He is known as Echoro outside of Japan.

Gameplay
There are five modes of gameplay used in Free Battle games. Except in Mission mode, a player is eliminated when he/she tops out, and the last player (or side) standing wins the round.


 * Puyo Puyo Great Transformation (ぷよぷよだいへんしん; Puyopuyo Daihenshin)
 * The main focus of the game. There are two transformations, Mini (ちび; Chibi) and Mega (でか; Deka), with each character having representations of each. The Transformations refer to the grid size, not so much the character representation.


 * Puyo Puyo Fever (ぷよぷよフィーバー; Puyopuyo Fībā)
 * This is Fever mode. It is identical to the mode in 15th Anniversary.


 * Puyo Puyo 2 (ぷよぷよ通; Puyopuyo tsū)
 * This mode emulates the gameplay of Puyo Puyo Tsu.


 * Puyo Puyo (ぷよぷよ; Puyopuyo)
 * This mode emulates the gameplay of the original Puyo Puyo.


 * Mission Puyo (なぞぷよ; Nazo Puyo)
 * In mission mode, the player is given a task which they must complete before their opponents. The first player (or side) to complete all tasks wins the round. This mode is named after the Puyo Puyo spinoff game released in 1993.

The story mode focuses mainly on Great Transformation, but has a small number of other modes in addition.

The first three modes are also available for multiplayer games over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live.