Puzzle League -- like, dislike, bottomless hole of anxiety?

So Animal Crossing is a stress reliever for me. I like how chill it is, how every answer to a question is the right answer, and you really gotta f**k up to make a villager mad at you. (They even forgive my forgetting to deliver gifts!)

Imagine my despair and panic when Puzzle League turns out to be all your friends trying to take over and overthrow your a**. But you know. For funsies! Yes, everyone gunning for "fake mayor" is cute at first, but it still hurts when you see your very closest friend and favorite villager going over to your opponent's side... And then that sugary music transforms into super stressful Sonic Is Drowning speeds, and THEN YOU'RE DEAD. I mean, you lose. I legit almost cried a few times. (I lost against Beau. BEAU. He thought this puzzle competition for a political seat was an eating competition!)

On the other hand, the New Nintendo 3DS looks super cute in my mermaid room.

What do the rest of you think? Good addition? Terrible game? It is at least something to do at 2AM.

I hate it. I hate it so much. And I hate it because even though it starts out kind of fun, I stop having fun about 1/3 into my time spent playing it. The second third I'm getting frustrated, and the last third I'm getting angry. I play because I get stubborn and feel like it's become a personal challenge to kick my own villagers' butts.

This game has also made me hate Isabelle just a bit.

And I agree about the Sonic Is Drowning music. The music is cute and reminds me of Yoshi's Island until it starts sounding like a hamster on a wheel, running till it's about to die.

I only tried it once and couldn't make it past the first level, ahaha! Ah well
Games like that tend to wind me up and I definitely prefer to play Animal Crossing to relax!

I hated the story mode (so stressful) but made it through somehow and regained leadership. It made me hate Isabelle a little too. Now I just play for meow-coupons. I got kind of good at it, so now it's actually fun to play.

I AM SO TERRIBLE AT THAT STUPID GAME
I played it once and it was so hard and I gave up

"Just try again! You might like it!" No.

It's okay. After receiving all the prizes that can be obtained through this game, I stopped playing it.

So much THIS. Animal Crossing is the happy place I go to to escape from the dreadful things of the real world. It is an adorable little paradise. Puzzle League makes me super anxious and tense, which is the opposite of what the rest of ACNL does for me. If the music wasn't so urgent maybe it would be better. I notice that on the island games, the 30 second countdown clock doesn't do me any favors either; I now turn the sound off for the timed games so it's more mellow.

Of course, I'm a bit high strung compared to some; my boyfriend teases me about the fact that I have an itchy trigger finger when I fish, because I'm so jumpy, ha. I've missed so many sharks that way.... sigh.

I HATE THIS GAME SO MUCH. I played it for a bit yesterday, because I wanted to give it one more try, but I still suck at it. Even with all my different Amiibo for the special move. I only managed to squeak by Tortimer because of Mabel, and it quickly derailed from there.

What kind of sadistic S.O.B. made this game?!

That music is annoying, isn't it? I noticed that music tends to make my mind blank and I pretty much fail at that point, even if I was doing well before then. Having the volume turned all the way down helps a LOT.

Anyway, I think it's OK, it's just annoyingly difficult IMO.

I love puzzle league, I would play it all the time on the n64 with pokemon puzzle league. In animal crossing, however, the game kind of responds slower so it's a bit harder to play. But it's so cute to see your villagers in the background and the blocks are so cute, it is all so cuteee!!

I believe that Puzzle League is quite a great addition for Animal Crossing: New Leaf, perhaps even better than the luck-fest that is called Desert Island Escape. In case you're tired of the slower pacing of the main game, just pop that addictive skill-based mini-game and off you go! I also like on how rewarding it feels when you begin on consistently setting up chains and combos at your will. It does takes quite a lot of practice to master any Puzzle League variation, but it's really worth the effort.


That being said, there are a number of bad design decisions that prevented the Animal Crossing version of Puzzle League from truly reaching its great potential, especially when it comes to approaching to new players.

For one, there is no proper tutorial on how to actually play Puzzle League like a pro. While the Story Mode does tell you how to play each of the 4 other modes, it never covers anything else than the controls and the rules, something that Tetris Attack and Pok?mon Puzzle League actually did quite efficiently. Because of the intricate and fast-paced nature of Puzzle League, the omission of proper tutorials will leave the less-experienced players confused on why they didn't perform all that well, unless they resort on online guides that covers any of the Puzzle League games.

Speaking of Story Mode, I feel like that the difficulty curve is very disjointed. That's mainly because it switches from Score Attack to either Time Attack, Candy Attack or Garbage Attack. And in some cases, it combines two of these modes! Since each mode has it own set of tactics and strategies, the game was practically changing its own rules and the player has to relearn on how they play. Had the entire Story Mode sticking to just one set of rules and never dare to change it at any given moment, the newer players would enjoy the game even more.

The music that plays while the stack's being pretty high is another poor design decision that occurs in this version of Puzzle League. Since having a large stack of blocks in place is a valid strategy, if not essential, why use a stressful music that doesn't quite fit the context?


Want to appreciate Puzzle League as a newcomer? Avoid the Animal Crossing version of it! Do whatever you can to play either Tetris Attack on SNES or Pok?mon Puzzle League on N64. The latter is especially great at getting you to grasps the fundamentals of Puzzle League.

I thought I'd hate it because I don't play these types of games, and to be honest I can't play for more than a couple of times every few days or I'll start to stress-dream about destroying blocks, but it's actually a fun minigame.

The only thing that I don't like is that it gets unfairly hard for people (impossible for me) without amiibo towards the end, since the default skill is useless compared to some of the special NPC skills, such as Mable's Sniper Wipe. But I'm not a pro either so maybe it's just that I suck really hard.

THE MUSIC IS SO STRESSFUL!!! I used to hate Puzzle League because I was terrible at it... but I practiced and got quite good playing Time Attack mode, so I just play it to get MEOW coupons. I haven't even beat story mode yet.

I thought the game itself was okay even though the difficulty curve is RIDICULOUSLY steep right off the bat. I got a little addicted to it when I finally got around to playing it but the music made it less and less enjoyable for me, especially on the garbage levels because the stacks are always high so the music is constantly fast and distorted and it's really stressful wtf? I stopped playing it after I got the flower fairy wig and a few other prizes but I never bothered to finish the last level of story mode. Maybe some day, but when I got the wig I was just done.

i am extremely terrible at it and it makes me feel better that so many other people are too haha. i've been trying to get to 10,000 on the garbage level and i can't because it causes me extreme anxiety and i'm just horrible at it period so i guess i'll have to buy the flower fairy wig.

It needs to be more like Candy Crush and less like Mortal Combat.

Beating the story mode on the hardest difficulty was a fun challenge. Other than that, I just played it to get the items I wanted and never touched it again.

charyse said:

i am extremely terrible at it and it makes me feel better that so many other people are too haha. i've been trying to get to 10,000 on the garbage level and i can't because it causes me extreme anxiety and i'm just horrible at it period so i guess i'll have to buy the flower fairy wig.

Click to expand...

This! I somehow scraped up to 9,000 yesterday but it just seems to get impossibly fast to where you can't even move your cursor in time. This is a problem I've found with many such 2D puzzle games. They really set the bar too high for getting that wig, IMO. I really want to legitimately achieve it but I can't see it happening. Unless amiibo cards significantly help (haven't tried to know) I'm doomed to always fail.

I read one amiibo cards power is to temporarily slow down time, so perhaps that'll be a lifeline for me.

A Wall of Text appears!

Honestly I'm really happy that they included Puzzle League/Panel de Pon. It's an unpopular Nintendo IP/Franchise as it is, so I'm really glad they haven't abandoned it.
[Please have a new Puzzle League title on the Switch, Ninty ;_;]

Tetris Attack for the SNES(and Panel de Pon for the Super Famicom in Japan) is one of my All-Time favorite video games ever! Pok?mon Puzzle League(N64), Pok?mon Puzzle Challenge(GBC), and Planet Puzzle League(NDS) are just as fun as the original TA/PdP. These games were a big part of my childhood, and the NDS entry was a fun stress reliever throughout my high school days.

The Animal Crossing version kinda disappointed me, though. For one, I expected Story Mode to be kind of like Planet Puzzle League(aka the 2007 Nintendo DS version), in which you're using Combos and Chains to fire garbage blocks at your Opponent until their screen is full and get KO'd..

In New Leaf it's just a glorified version of Stage Clear Mode. The other modes are fine! It's just the Story Mode was underwhelming. It's way too easy, and even "Kinda Hard" is a joke. I got all the Puzzle League prizes in a little under an hour and a half. I never used my "Special Amiibo Move" because I personally found it useless, I forget it's even a thing sometimes while I play. Naturally it's another lame ass cash grab by Nintendo, since you can only use the Animal Crossing series figures and not the Series 1-4/WA cards.
(I understand why you can use both cards/figures in Desert Island Escape, but.. Why not Puzzle League?)

The Flower Fairy(her name is Lip for those who don't know) costume is super cute. I'm glad they didn't localize her and turn it into a dumb Yoshi costume or something stupid like that.

What also baffled me was the lack of an actual tutorial! How the heck did Nintendo expect new players to get into this underrated series without teaching them the basics?! Really stupid move on their part.

This game really isn't that bad if you don't take it so seriously. It's actually pretty fun! Yeah, the music is kinda jarring at times, but why don't you mute the game and listen to other stuff? I muted the game and listened to one of my playlists on Pandora instead, and the game was a lot more enjoyable afterward.

(Every entry in Puzzle League except the New Leaf version had awesome music imo, so I didn't have to mute those.)

Anyway, TL;DR: Really Glad they brought back a not so popular IP, should've added a tutorial and a real Story/VS CPU mode like the older games in the series, and should've used less obnoxious music. For those who are struggling, play Tetris Attack, Planet Puzzle League(Normal or Express), and/or Pok?mon Puzzle League first, then play the New Leaf version. I assure you it'll be easier after you practice. Those entries in particular have really thorough tutorials for newcomers. (◍?ᴗ?◍)