Puyo Puyo Quest is a fairly successful mobile game in Japan. For the West, the game is being reskinned and launched as “Cranky Food Friends,” with a soft launch that started in Canada and certain European countries. If there is any doubt, compare the featured image with the image below.
The similarity in structure of the two games should be immediately apparent. Even if Cranky Food Friends was simply inspired by the concept of Puyo Puyo Quest and didn’t involve the replacing of assets, it would beg the question of why Puyo Puyo Quest itself wasn’t released outside of Japan while Cranky Food Friends is going to see such a release. We each decided to write down our thoughts about this, which you can find below.
InTheSky:
I think that such a move suggests some uncharitable assumptions about Puyo Puyo as a franchise in Western territories. Which to me, would be strange in itself. The bright colors and cute characters (food?…) are similar traits between the two games. The gameplay itself clearly isn’t a problem since it’s being replicated, and I am not sure what the cultural barriers might be in the original Puyo Puyo Quest. The only thing that comes to mind is that nondescript, easy-access concepts such as food and replacing the Puyos with shapes is a move to maximize potential profit. While Apple has made moves to curate its game space over time, smartphone gaming is still extremely competitive (if you are a game publisher) and highly populated. Still…was this necessary? It’s an awkward question to ask because only one course of action could really answer it, but it’s a small move at the end of the day that amounts to furthering the gap between Japanese Sega offerings and Western Sega offerings – a schism already felt with the absence of certain localized titles.
Draikin:
Changing the game like this seems like a very ill-advised decision to me. You turn a game with a distinct and recognizable artstyle into something that looks like another Candy Crush-clone. Of course, Puyo Puyo Quest wasn’t a full-fledged Puyo Puyo game to begin with, so it doesn’t really do much damage to the Puyo Puyo franchise overall. But it does show that whoever made the decision to rip everything Puyo Puyo-related out of this game clearly doesn’t believe in the Puyo Puyo franchise, and that doesn’t bode well for the chances of seeing this franchise return to the West. As much as the recent comments from Haruki Satomi made it sound like Sega would start to believe in the strength of their own franchises again, we get another questionable move that proves otherwise. At least the Puyo Puyo game in Project Mirai DX remained intact…
Kuronoa:
The series had a history of being reskinned and malnourished in marketing in the West. It is unfortunate that Atlus does not pick them up anymore; the sales for Puyo Puyo Fever must have been terrible. The series could use a reboot here, but seeing a mobile game with characters replaced by “generic” food monsters disappoints me. I am hoping that the marketing strategy lies with just the spinoffs since it doesn’t use traditional Puyo Puyo gameplay and that the main entries are kept with the original art and characters.