That being said, Black Kikimora is a member of the Many Mysteries group? Well, makes sense. Say, has Compile ever gone into on how she came to be in-universe?
She's said to be Kikimora's shadow, but don't ask me how she gained sentience, even in her debut she was just kinda there.
Hmm? What do you mean? You're not feeling left out, are you?
I just took it as a joke.
On another note, I have been thinking for a bit, in regards to Puyo's storytelling and looking back I'm starting to see an even bigger reaso nwhy the current formula feels so stale to me, especially when looking at all the past stories back to back :
The first game had little to no story and extremely basic character interactions, even the ending makes fun of that, by saying that ''Puyo Hell stopped, for no real reason''. The manual details more plot, but none of it really shows up in game.
TSU's had more of a visible presence in most home ports (the arcade game really had no story) with Satan trying to impress Arle and the Masked Satan stick and cutscenes got more interesting, especially in the PSX/Saturn versions.
SUN was the first game to put spotlight on characters besides Arle and the encounters feel a bit more like they are part of a progressing adventure, especially with the world map between matches, it's also by far the goofiest plot in the series, a fact that the game embraces and celebrates to delightful lenghts.
YON, was the first game to have an actual plot twist and a villain other then Satan, in the form of Doppelganger Arle, whose appearence carries a surprisingly melancholical atmosphere, giving the game a slightly more serious edge then usual.
BOX and Minna both follow the ''Satan wants Arle'' formula, but it's understandable in these cases, since BOX has a new RPG mode to present it and Minna was SEGA's first fully original self made entry in the series, so it's not hard to see why they would rely a bit on familiarity on their first attempt.
Fever brought a major shift, introducing Primp and a largely new cast, with that said many important elements of the Fever world weren't present yet and everyone was still much more one-dimensional, the plot not being very developed doesn't help.
Fever 2 picks up the slack by really building on Fever's foundation, introducing new crucial characters, building on elements that were already there (the demon in Klug's book) and including the library to add some much needed backstory to Primp and it's inhabitants. On top of that the characterization of everyone is far stronger this time around, along with a much more focused story, not only due to how the routes of all three main characters connect, but so do the optional conversations in town and the library materials, leading to a surprisingly nuanced story.
15th's story is actually extremely simple, but it makes up for it with it's strong focus on character building, especially with everyone getting their own campaign and the way it builds on previous elements, special mention goes to Oshare, whose sub-plot regarding the Memory of Chu in Fever 2 hinted at things from his past, which are elaborated on more in this game. This is also where the series began to slowly bring back Madou era characters.
PP7 has a travel around the world type of plot, it's also the first game to introduce Ecolo as the villain, as well as the A Trio concept, it's also where the focus slowly shifted away from the Fever cast, with Raffine and Sig getting tossed out of the story after a single chapter.
20th much like 15th gives everyone their own story and while some tie into the FInal Story they are mostly self contained mini stories, a lot of which do bring back the character building qualities of the previous anniversary game, with things like exploring Raffine's hidden insecurities in regards to her lack of magic power and actually giving Ecolo some much welcomed personality, this time around.
While TSU, BOX and Minna all do somewhat follow a formula it's done differently enough in each game for it to not be that noticable, SUN is the first game to have a multiple character stories structure and Yon goes for a more involved plot. With Fever we had the more shallow narrative of the first game, which was expanded upon in every possible way, with the following two games.
I guess the thing I'm trying to say is that all the games felt rather unique in how they handled their stories, with the pre-Fever games slowly starting to have more of a plot, with some very unique flavors, like the very silly SUN or the slightly more serious and involved YON, while Fever onwards put a ton of effort into etablishing Primp and it's inhabitants, to a point where everyone had a very defined place in the town.
PP7 was the game that started the current era and introduced the current formula. 20th did have elements from said formula, which also includes a slight seperation of the cast between the eras (again Arle's story), but it also played into enough of 15th's strenghts to be satisfactory at the end of the day and while it was the game that started the constant Satan/Ecolo team ups, I think it can be excused on the grounds of it being the first time, it's not like anyone could guess that it would become a constant theme later on.
The Puyo site of PPT (outside of Chapter 9) is about as fundamental as you can get, with the A Trio in their typical roles, Satan and Ecolo once again playing part in the conflict (only this time as part of the solution) while everyone else's roles are very minor and major seperation between the eras, the Tetris site is where the real meat of the story resides.
Chronicle doesn't really have a particulary big story, but with everyone being in one group it could have been like 15th, where the interactions and dynamics between the cast could carry the whole thing and at times it feels like the game tries to be like that, but at the end of the day Arle, Amitie, Ringo, Satan and Ecolo still hijack the game, with most of the cast spending much of the game silent,even Ally doesn't get to do much and Rafisol, despite being the finaly boss of the game, is ultimately just the result of Ecolo's actions, unlike someone like Strange Klug, who has a backstory and place in the history of his world that details who he is and why he exists in the form that we know him as, instead of him just being treated like an easy conflict plot device.
The thing is that when you get down to it, the stories of PPT's Puyo side and Chronicle might be different, but because of how inconsequential everything that doesn't involve those particular 5 characters really is, they end up feeling repetetive and stale, which is especially noticable in Chronicle, where Ally contributes very little and Rafisol even existing is just an extension of Ecolo messing things up again, it doesn't help that unlike in 20th or even 7, the games rarely touch on plot elements from past games.
At the end of the day I just hope the series moves on from the current format soon, because it just comes off as if the series is limiting itself, Pre-Fever had it's formulaic elements but never felt like it was downplaying old or new characters/plot points, just for the sake of keeping said elements in the spotlight.
Who knows really, with Chronicle bringing back more Madou-era characters again I'm holding out hope that Doppelganger Arle will get her turn one of these days, because she's a character that really deserves to be explored more.
