Puyo Puyo Fever for Dreamcast FAQ v. 0.2 By E. Watts (bannatum@netscape.net; don't email me with questions about the game, don't spam me, so basically only email me with additional info about the game) Created: 02/25/04 Last changed: 03/01/04 Index: A. HOW TO GET THE GAME TO PLAY IN ENGLISH B. GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS C. OPTIONS D. EXTRAS E. LEGAL, ETC. A. HOW TO GET THE GAME TO PLAY IN ENGLISH Puyo Puyo Fever has the option to have both text and speech in English. Unfortunately, it's buried in the options and is not in Romanji (which would easily let you read the word "English"). So here is a step by step guide on how to get English turned on. 1. Turn the game on (create a save file if you haven't already, or don't); hit the start button until you're on a page with four options in bubbles at the top of the screen. 2. Choose the fourth option (the one on the right) and hit A or start 3. Choose the seventh option (the one immediately below the option that has "Dreamcast" in Romanji) 4. Change both options for English text and speech 5. Hit B to return to the options menu; everything will still be in Japanese 6. Hit B again to try to return to the selection page; you will have a window appear with two options (it's asking if you want to change the option setting); choose the left option and hit A 7. You should be at the main selection menu and everything should be in English now. You should probably return to the option page and save the game at this point so you don't have to do it again. B. GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS (This section is quite preliminary.) The game displays different names depending on the language setting. IF you have it set on Japanese, it says (nad shows) Puyo Puyo Fever. In English, it shows and says Puyo Pop Fever. The spine of the game says, in Romanji, Puyo Puyo Fever. So what's the game's name? Pick what you want, but it's unlikely to show up as anything other than Puyo Puyo Fever (well, except from pirates who don't have the packaging and only play it in English). After rounds, you have an option to save a replay of the game. These files take up 26 memory blocks apiece. The game's system save takes up 4. Clear attack puyos (called nuisance puyos) disappear when you clear a non-diagonally adjacent piece Fever mode: different graphics behind you, music, time limit; seems to set you up for total clearage. Big block puyos can have their color changed with the rotate button You may want to keep the voices Japanese; they sound pretty lame in English C. OPTIONS I. Main Selection Screen 1. Single Puyo POP a. RunRun Course. Training course; 3 stages. b. WakuWaku Course. Intermediate; 8 stages. c. HaraHara Course. Advanced; 8 stages. d. Free Battle. Play against who you want. "Good for training". 2. Double Puyo POP 3. Endless Puyo POP 4. Options The rightmost option. See next section. II. Options Screen 1. Button Configuration 2. Difficulty (Easy, Normal, Hard) 3. Cut Scene (On, Off) 4. Animation for Chains (On, Off) 5. Sound (Stereo, Mono) 6. Dreamcast Background changer: a. Backgrounds This puts one of several puyo puyo backgrounds onto your memory card (very big; I put one on and it took up 38 blocks), which then are displayed in your DC's file manager background. This only works when the file is on a memory card in your system; it doesn't need to be there at boot up tho, as I can switch to a bank in an official 4X card and it shows up once it's on the right page. The file is named "EXTRA.BG.PVR". It has a moving version of the image in the sky, and a rippling version on the ground. It's too bad other games didn't do this too; it's fine and all, but I'm not sure Puyo Puyo really defines my Dreamcast experience. The first option (the one with no picture) removes the background file from the memory card. b. VMU Icon/Real Mode The option below the background option saves a Puyo Puyo icon to the VMU (it looks like a sign that says "Bi", "13i", or a Japanese character or characters that resemble the preceding alphanumerics; it's identical in either English or Japanese, in spite of the non-retained gameplay VMU icon, which is the game's title logo, and differs on the VMU screen depending on the language settings you use). And, if you've already put the VMU icon on the memory card that's inserted, choosing this option removes the icon. This is actually a very special option; saving the VMU icon to your memory card allows the system to boot into what the game calls "real" mode. When you have the memory card in and are at the DC's main menu, pressing start will now change the menu to a different set up; it looks like the underlying wire frames of the controller, VMU, musical note, and alarm clock are the same, but they are not faded as they are in the normal menu. They are also presented as a different angle, and are smaller. Coolest of all, the analog stick now lets you change the camera angle of the view of the settings and lets you move away to see the reflective tableau below the items and the event horizon cone above them. The analog triggers can each rotate the menu image 180 degrees. The d-pad control of movement in the menu remains absolute, tho. When playing a music CD in the CD player in real mode, a gentle aura shimmers around the image of the spinning CD. Some people seem impressed by this. I think it's pretty lame, but no worse than the normal CD menu. There is supposedly a very short string of characters in the VMU icon file that initiates this change, meaning it's in your DC and is simply being activated by the save file, it's not being loaded the way the image in the .PVR file is. Real Mode supposedly only runs at around 30 FPS (based on guesses from the DC homebrew community), and it does glitch on occasion (I saw it hang for a few seconds exiting the settings page). 7. Language a. Text b. Voice 8. Gallery a. Music test b. Sound FX test c. Voice test d. (unlocked movies? 7 at this point...) e. High Score tables f. Back 9. Saved game Replay Lists saved games; choose one: Leftmost option: replay game (pause and choose second option to exit replay) Middle option: erase Right option: return to choosing a saved game 10. Save/Load (load is top, save is lower 11. Return D. EXTRAS There are no extras in the GD-ROM portion of the disc, which is odd as Sonic Team was always quite good about providing content there. However, you can download a Puyo Puyo slot machine game promoting this game from the developers. It's a Flash game and can presently be found at http://www.sonicteam.com/puyofever/pf_slot.html although you need to win the download. If you just change the above extension from .html to .zip, you should get the download directly. You can also get wallpaper from them at http://www.sonicteam.com/puyofever/dl_wp.html E. LEGAL, ETC. Copyright 2004 E. Watts. You must get explicit approval from me to put this FAQ on a website or distribute it in any other manner. Approval is granted for this FAQ to be used on the GameFAQs website. Permission is explicitly denied to www.cheatcc.com and its affiliates. This is because of their use without my explicit permission of another FAQ I wrote. If you see this FAQ on www.cheatcc.com please email me so that I can take action against them as quickly as possible. www.cheatcc.com may only use this FAQ if they agree to pay me $76,000, agree to Michigan as the venue for any legal proceedings, and agree to pay any legal fees associated with collecting or otherwise enforcing these conditions. www.cheatcc.com will signal agreement to this by their use of this FAQ. Thanks to Sonic Team for making great games.