Panel de Pon

Panel de Pon or Panel De Pon is the first installment of the Puzzle League series. The game was released exclusively in Japan for the Super Famicom on October 27, 1995. Panel de Pon stars a young fairy named Lip. In regions outside of Japan, the game was released as Tetris Attack, in which every character was replaced with those from the Yoshi franchise.

Panel de Pon was released on the Wii's Virtual Console on November 27, 2007, on the Wii U's Virtual Console on May 29, 2013, and on the New Nintendo 3DS's Virtual Console on August 9, 2016, once again solely in Japan. It is also one of the 21 games included in the Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Famicom exclusive to Japan. It was also released in Japan and for the first time overseas in the Americas, Europe, and Australia for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System - Nintendo Switch Online application on May 20, 2020.

Story
The evil devil king Thanatos has cast a spell over the world of Popples to cause fighting amongst the fairies. The Fairy of Flowers, Lip, is unaffected due to her magic stick. Lip must defeat each of her fairy friends in a puzzle game to return their personalities to normal, then proceed to face off against Thanatos.

Upon completion of Hard Mode, the player discovers that the final boss, the goddess Cordelia, is actually Lip's mother and queen of the fairies. She informs Lip that the events leading up to this moment were a test to see if Lip had the strength to become the new Queen of the next generation of fairies.

In the Nintendo Puzzle Collection version, similar but younger fairies take the place of the original characters, and several new characters and stages have been added. The plot is otherwise very similar; however, the ending is very different.

Gameplay
In Panel de Pon, the player is presented with a playfield consisting of a virtual grid of squares, each of which can be occupied by a colored block. Blocks are stacked on top of one another and rise steadily toward the top of the playfield, with new blocks being added at the bottom. The player must arrange blocks in horizontal or vertical lines of three or more matching colors by swapping blocks horizontally two at a time. As matching lines are formed, the blocks are cleared from the screen and any blocks above them fall into the gaps. The game is over when the blocks touch the top of the playfield, or another game-ending condition is met (such as reaching a time limit or clearing blocks below a set line).

The player moves a two-block cursor around the playfield using the D-pad and swaps blocks within the cursor using the action button. A block may be swapped with an empty space, and blocks that are moved into an empty column immediately fall toward the bottom of the playfield. The player can cause the playfield to rise more quickly by pressing either shoulder button. The cursor is free to move while blocks are clearing, allowing the player to form other matches and line up chains.

Clearing more than three tiles in a single move scores a Combo, while Chains are scored when falling blocks from one clear cause another clear to occur. Both of these events score extra bonus points, and in multiplayer Versus games, these also send "garbage blocks" to the other player's playfield.

When three or more tiles of the same color are lined up in a row or column (not diagonally), this creates a combo. The tiles then light up and disappear from the playing field. Combos are counted on-screen with plain numbers (4, 5, 6, etc.). Once they are cleared, any tiles that were above them will drop. The cursor is free to move while tiles are disappearing, so players can line up more tiles. The maximum number of tiles that can be cleared in a single flip of the tiles is 14, but anything higher than 10 is rare during routine play.

Chains are instances when tiles which fall as the result of a clear trigger another clear. The player may rearrange tiles while the clear is taking place in order to cause a chain to occur. The maximum designation of a chain in Panel de Pon is "x13". Any chain higher than a 13-chain gets zero points for each additional "link". If playing in the competitive mode, it is possible to make a chain that is larger than 24. From "x14" to "x24", "x?" is the on-screen representation. After this point, no symbol appears. This level of play is sometimes referred to as "chaining blanks". Outside of competitive mode, the theoretical maximum chain length is 24, since each link in the chain requires at least three tiles, there are only 72 that can fit on the screen at once, and the screen cannot be raised while a chain is occurring.

Modes
Panel de Pon has several single-player modes. Story Mode takes the player through the game's main plot, pitting the player against a series of foes in a head-to-head match. The objective is to cause the computer-controlled player to lose. In Endless Mode, the player is challenged to play as long as possible with a continuously rising stack of blocks, which increases in speed over time. Timed Mode challenges the player to score as many points as possible within a two-minute time limit, and Stage Clear mode takes the player through a series of stages in which the objective is to clear blocks below a set line. A Puzzle Mode is also provided, which presents the player with a number of puzzles where he or she must clear all of the blocks in a set number of moves. (Blocks do not rise in this mode.)

In addition to the game's single-player modes, Panel de Pon also provides several multiplayer modes that are essentially two-player variants of the single-player modes. One or both human players may be substituted with a computer-controlled player with a selectable difficulty level.

Fairies

 * Lip: Lip (リップ Rippu) is the main character in the original game in the series. She is a flower fairy who resembles a human child with reddish-brown hair with a long ponytail. She owns a flower-shaped stick. She is the default character you play as in 1P VS. mode.
 * Windy: Windy (ウィンディ) is a wind fairy with pink hair and a green skirt and shirt. She is faced in Stage 1 of 1P VS. mode.
 * Sharbet: Sharbet (シャーベット Shabetto, Japanese pronunciation of "sherbet") is a snow fairy. She has icy blue hair, white gloves, a green skirt and T-shirt and a short, purple cape. She is battled in Stage 2 of 1P VS. mode.
 * Thiana: Thiana (ティアナ) is the forest fairy. She resembles a pre-teen with semi-transparent green clothes and long green hair tied back in a ponytail. She is faced in Stage 3 of 1P VS. mode.
 * Ruby: Ruby (ルビー Rubii) is a jewel fairy, and the one fairy who resembles the stereotypical winged fairy. She wears a dark purplish-blue dress and has green hair that extends above her head. She is met in stage 4 of 1P VS. mode.
 * Elias: Elias (エリアス Eriasu) is a water fairy. She resembles a peaceful young maiden with very long blue hair and a turquoise dress. She is faced in Stage 5 in 1P VS. mode.
 * Flare: Flare (フレア Furea) is a fire fairy. She resembles a young woman with long, curly red hair with a tiara on top of her head, a sleeveless blue shirt and a blue skirt. She is faced in Stage 6 in 1P VS mode.
 * Neris: Neris (ネリス Nerisu) is a sea fairy with long green hair and seashell brassiere (though she resembles a mermaid). She is faced in Stage 7 of 1P VS. mode.
 * Seren: Seren (セレン) is a moon fairy who is the last of the fairies to rescue before fighting the enemies. She is depicted as a young woman with long curly blond hair, a crescent moon on her forehead, a white dress and a crescent moon staff which bears her a striking resemblance to Sailor Moon. She is fought in Stage 8 of 1P VS. mode.

Enemies

 * Phoenix: Phoenix (フェニックス Fenikkusu) is a large mythological bird which serves as the first enemy of Panel de Pon, faced in Stage 9 of 1P VS. mode.
 * Dragon: Dragon (ドラゴン full name Biigu Monsuta Doragon Big Monster Dragon) is a large dragon fought in Stage 10 of 1P VS. mode.
 * Sanatos: Sanatos (サナトス Thanatos) is the last boss of Normal 1P VS. mode and second-to-last of Hard and Harder VS. mode. He is only faced in those three difficulties, specifically in Stage 11. Sanatos is a large and muscular Satan-like demon with a large red cape, a mohawk hair cut, two large horns, and a beard on his chin. He is shown to carry a sheathed sword in Stage Clear mode.
 * Corderia: Corderia (コーデリア full name Great Goddess Cordelia) is the final boss of 1P VS. mode and only faced when the player plays the Hard and Harder difficulties. She represents Stage 12. She is Lip's mother and poses as a villain in order to test Lip's abilities. She is a colossal woman with long brown hair.

New characters in Nintendo Puzzle Collection
In the release of Panel de Pon within Nintendo Puzzle Collection, the daughters of each of the Fairies take the place of the original characters, while the original bosses remain. In addition, several new characters and stages have been added.

Alternate versions and sequels
The Japanese version of Tetris Attack was released on the Satellaview as a Yoshi title instead of using the Tetris name license. Like Tetris Attack, there was an option in the menus to play the game with the characters and story dialogue in English, but the menus would stay in Japanese. The Game Boy version was also released in Japan as a standard cartridge. An altered version of the original Panel de Pon was also released via Satellaview in 1998 under the name BS Panel De Pon - Event '98.

Pokémon Puzzle Challenge, released for Game Boy Color in 2000, has a secret "Panel de Pon GB" mode accessible on a Game Boy or Super Game Boy, and contains many leftovers indicating it was a full game before being rebranded. Pokémon Puzzle Challenge was also tentatively titled Pokémon Attack, based on the name Tetris Attack.

Nintendo developed a sequel to the original game on Nintendo 64, known as Panel de Pon 64, but it was canceled and believed to have been retooled as Pokémon Puzzle League for the international market in 2000. The Panel de Pon sequel was later ported to Nintendo GameCube along with Dr. Mario and Yoshi no Cookie as part of Nintendo Puzzle Collection in 2003, which was planned to have a release outside of Japan.

Puzzle League was then the western name for the style of gameplay, and Dr. Mario & Puzzle League, a two-game cartridge for Game Boy Advance, released internationally in 2005.

Planet Puzzle League was released for Nintendo DS in 2007. This iteration has no mascot branding. Lip makes an appearance in an unlockable Super Famicom stage theme in the Japanese version, Panel de Pon DS, which was dummied out of international versions. A simplified DSiWare edition called Puzzle League Express was released in 2009.

The original game was released on the Wii's Virtual Console on November 27, 2007, on the Wii U's Virtual Console on May 29, 2013, and on the New Nintendo 3DS's Virtual Console on August 9, 2016, once again solely in Japan.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf for Nintendo 3DS received a Puzzle League minigame as part of the Welcome amiibo update in 2016, four years after the game's launch in 2012.

Panel de Pon is also one of the 21 games included in the Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Famicom exclusive to Japan. It was also released in Japan and for the first time overseas in the Americas, Europe, and Australia for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System - Nintendo Switch Online application on May 20, 2020.

References in other Nintendo games
In the Super Smash Bros. series, since Super Smash Bros. Melee, Lip's Stick appears as a recurring item. Kirby's Stone move can turn him into many objects, including a garbage block from Panel de Pon. Panel de Pon music also appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Lip makes a notable appearance as a character in Captain Rainbow. She also appears as a spirit and Mii Swordfighter costume in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.