Planet Puzzle League

aka: Panel de Pon DS, Puzzle League DS
Moby ID: 31709
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Description

Take on the world in Planet Puzzle League, a simple but addictive puzzle game that you may recognize as Tetris Attack, Panel De Pon, or Pokémon Puzzle League. Colored tiles rise up from a bin, and its your job to arrange them horizontally or vertically in lines of three or more of the same tile. This causes them to disappear. Advanced players will be able to arrange tiles so that when they land, they clear additional tiles to stop the tiles from rising and score even more points!

Planet Puzzle League features a wide variety of different game modes to keep even the most dedicated puzzler busy:* Endless - Play forever until you fail. The tiles rise faster over time.

  • Clear - Remove all the blocks down to the 'CLEAR' line, buried deep down.
  • Garbage Challenge - Garbage blocks rain down on your bin - clear as many as you can!
  • Vs. COM - Play against the CPU. Try to get their tiles to reach the top of the bin first!
  • Time Attack - See how many points you can earn in two minutes.
  • Puzzle - Either clear the preset mind-bending puzzles, or try the various missions that you are given.

Similar to Brain Age, Planet Puzzle League features a 'Daily' Mode. Play these short games once a day to track your skill over a long period of time. Are you getting better? Or worse?

You can also play multiplayer modes of the game, either locally, or over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Modes of play include Birthday Battle (play against people who share your date of birth), Free Play Battle (play an unranked match), and Friend Battle (play against Friends you've traded Friend Codes with).

Spellings

  • パネルでポンDS - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Promos

Credits (Nintendo DS version)

56 People (37 developers, 19 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 36 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 7 ratings with 1 reviews)

Addictive and challenging without frustration

The Good
As a port of the original, (Tetris Attack -SNES- or Panel de Pon -SFC-) it's a really fun and faithful translation. The graphics are great and they even have different skins for the panels, garbage, and GUI. They even have daily average counters, which is really cool so you can challenge yourself to get better. The touch screen controls are fun as well, and while with a little more combo planning, you can still go very fast using the touch controls, I still can't get to the same speed as I'm at just with using the d-pad. Of course, that's just more of a natural occurrence with touch screen controls rather than a design flaw. First timers or casual gamers playing this game will most likely enjoy the touch controls better but I suggest if you want to play over the Wi-Fi, you should accustom yourself with the d-pad as most people playing online are very skilled.

There are also some new modes that allow you to work on your problem areas of the game. One mode is a mode that only gives you points when you push the stack up, which makes use of the fact that this game allows you to push the stack up while combos and chains are being counted. (You have to go to the options screen to allow it though). The other mode is a garbage counting mode where it constantly sends garbage to your screen and to get points, you have to break down the garbage as fast as you can. This mode really helps your ability to handle huge screens of garbage, which will definitely happen when you face off with really advanced players.

The Bad
I didn't like the music. It's not to say that it's badly produced, I just like the original soundtrack more. There just wasn't anything memorable about this soundtrack for me. On the same note, there really wasn't too much of a theme to the game. The SNES version was all Yoshi's Island-themed and the N64 had a Pokemon theme but this one just had a bunch of sleek-futuristic themes with techno music playing in the background. It's not a terrible way to do it but it does take away some of the character and charm of the original.

Also, if you've played the original Tetris Attack, this game (in terms of a start to finish) will be very short. Granted, the AI is much more fierce than the original AI but it still doesn't take too long to learn the tricks to beating them. Even so, the game is more about multiplayer and daily online play so it's not that big of a deal but just keep in mind that one player will get old fast if you've already mastered the game.

The Bottom Line
If you're looking to buy this game as a portable version of a classic favorite, then buy it. It has all the same stuff you're looking for, plus extras. (including wireless multi-player and online play.) Also, you won't get the same lag that the SNES version had during furious bouts with two players

If you're a newbie looking for an addictive puzzler, you should buy it as well. It's a very easy concept (just basically line up similar colored blocks) and very addictive gameplay.

Nintendo DS · by Calpis (27) · 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Planet Puzzle League appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2007 – #3 Nintendo DS Game of the Year
    • 2007 – #10 Multiplayer Game of the Year

Analytics

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Related Games

Puzzle League Express
Released 2009 on Nintendo DSi
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Panel de Pon
Released 1995 on SNES, 2007 on Wii, 2013 on Wii U...
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Released 2007 on Nintendo DS
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Picross DS
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Dragon Ball: Origins
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Tetris DS
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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 31709
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Ben K.

Additional contributors: gamewarrior, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added December 21, 2007. Last modified January 5, 2024.