Puyo Pop was one of the first games for the Nokia N-Gage, released during the arguably catastrophic launch of the system. Various factors influenced the development of the game, which turned out to be rather hurried and perhaps premature, including the late release of the software development kits and pressure from Nokia to get the game complete for the launch. However, unlike its 'launch buddy' Puzzle Bobble VS, Puyo Pop is arguably very entertaining and a lot of fun.

It may just be a port of the GBA version, but Puyo Pop is a simple game with simple mechanics that turns out to be very addictive. Puyo Pop is a no-frills puzzle game that aims to hook with simple yet compelling gameplay. The objective is to align at least four equally coloured 'Puyos', whatever they are, so that they can cancel each other out. The game is played simultaneously, either with another CPU player, or a human player in multiplayer mode, and the first to allow his Puyos to reach the top of the screen loses.

As soon as the game starts, we're greeted with a Symbian style menu system, albeit with a little bit of colour. There are various game settings, such as the much-needed setting to turn the sound off, which ends up being repetitive and unbearable.

The single player mode has various sections. There is a Puzzle mode, which is brutally hard once the first few levels are out of the way. This mode is very welcome, as the single player campaign can get a tad repetitive. The Puzzle mode consists of various situations with Puyos in the way and the objectives vary in function of the Puzzle. Sometimes it might be to simply clear the entire level, other times it might be the insanely hard objective of clearing all the blue Puyos. However, this is one of the game modes I use the most, due to its addictiveness and its ease of play. There is also an Exercise mode, which serves to practice your Puyo-Popping in different game difficulty settings against yourself. Here, the high score registers on the save game (there is no Arena ranking), so it's all about beating your own best score.

The campaign, so to speak, consists of you taking your Puyos against different opponents of increasing difficulty level. There is no real pattern, but although technically the same level is not the same played twice, the game style can get rather repetitive after a while, especially if you are incapable of beating the CPU (I will come clean - sometimes I get the impression that the game favours the CPU, but it might just be that I'm a sore loser!) Each different opponent has a different 'avatar' and I get the impression that each opponent has a different style of approaching the game, which is always welcome in any puzzle game, which will eventually become monotonous with prolonged play, regardless of how addictive it is.

There is a multiplayer mode, which is intended for two players playing head to head using Bluetooth. This is definitely one of the greater aspects of this game, as there is no better substitute for a human player sitting in front of you. There is absolutely no lag in multiplayer games, although this might vary depending on the state of the phones that are involved in the game - a full internal memory and more than one running application at the same time, apart from being foolish, is bound to cause problems with any game.

As I have mentioned already, there is sound, but it's brain-numbingly dull and boring - in this aspect, I appreciate the care the programmers put into the sound options. Disabling the sound is a must - Classic N-Gage owners will have the enormous advantage of being able to play with the radio switched on. The graphics are reasonable, although evidently, in light of games such as Ikusa Islands and ONE, the N-Gage is clearly capable of more. Still, the graphics are colourful and entertaining, serving their purpose - you have to give it to Sega, for a launch game this one is pretty entertaining and well put together.

Although Sega can obviously produce better games for the platform, such as the omnipresent Pocket Kingdom, Puyo Pop is the perfect mobile puzzle game. It is easy to pick up and play and there is an inexplicable interest in going back to defeat the stubborn opponent that just refuses to lose! It is a pity that this game was marketed with a regular console game price, as you're not getting that much for your money. However, if you enjoy pick up and play games and you enjoy puzzlers, Puyo Pop is worth trying to find - it will definitely keep you entertained for a good while and draw you back for more addictive and fiendish fun.

Reviewed by Adri Cachinero for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).