The game offers an experience similar to several puzzle role-playing games like Puzzle & Dragons, with a playability different from traditional Puyo Puyo games. The player deletes five types of "Puyo" on a 6x8 square matrix puzzle screen by finger swiping. When four or more puyos of the same color are connected vertically or horizontally, they disappear and their actions are linked to make an ally card attack, corresponding to the color of each card. The board is constantly filling as the player deletes Puyos.
Card collection
As a gacha game, the player can collect character and item cards to improve them by combining them. These cards can be obtained by completing matches, or by redeeming them with tickets, tokens or gems present in the game.
Board elements
Coloured puyos, the main element of the game. When you match four or more adjacent Puyos horizontally or vertically, they disappear, giving attack points.
Heart, which is cleaned by removing adjacent Puyos, giving more health points to the player's characters.
Shining Puyos, that appears when making 6 or more chains, or cleaning 16 or more Puyos simultaneously. By cleaning that Puyo, a "challenge opportunity" similar to Fever mode is activated, with pre-formed chains, in order to get more attack points.
Nuisance Puyos, which some characters with certain abilities can transform the opponent's Puyos into transparent Puyos. These cannot be cleaned by sliding your finger, but by cleaning adjacent Puyos. A variant is the solid nuisance Puyos, which the adjacent Puyos must be cleaned twice to clean them.
Prism ball, which will appear thanks to the abilities of certain characters. These objects can be cleaned by deleting adjacent Puyos, giving attack points to the whole player's team.
Game modes
One-player quest, where then player can choose between several missions, in which they faces a series of characters controlled by the CPU, in one or more stages. The player must form a team of up to 9 characters, in which the player must strengthen over time in order to win further matches; In most games, the player can choose a guild mate's character, that will be added to the in-game team. Each game is played with up to 5 characters at a time, plus the sixth guild mate character. Certain combinations of members allow to enhance their abilities. Some prices are given to the player depending on their performance.
Cooperative multiplayer, where the player plays with up to three more partners, in a series of missions against the CPU.
Versus multiplayer, where the player chooses an opponent and plays against the CPU using the selected opponent's team in a limited-time game. The player must form a team of 9 characters, which will play three-on-three at time. The team that beats all the opponent's characters, or the player that has more health points at the time end, wins the game. The player accumulates stars to open a chest with prizes, as well as advancing in the world rankings, depending on their performance.
Event matches, available during limited-time events. The player chooses the difficulty level, and accumulates points according to their performance, which will result in prizes at the end of those events.
Collab events
The game has been characterized by bringing various Japanese franchises jointly organizing collaborative events with other companies, usually to promote a new anime or video game. Some notable events are:
My Melody Festival, as part of a collaboration program between Sega and Sanrio, featuring My Melody. It took place between January 18 and 24, 2016
Snow Miku Collaboration Gacha, collaboration to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Snow Miku.
Moon Medal Festival, March 18-24, 2019.
Dr. Slump Arale-chan Festival, July 15-21, 2019.
Magical Orb Festival, event to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Ojamajo Doremi franchise. It took place between November 15 and 24, 2019.
New Sakura Wars Collab, event to promote the new video game Project Sakura Wars). It took place between December 6 and 16, 2019.
Reception
Sega Networks claimed that Puyopuyo!! Quest received over 12 million downloads as of January 2015. Puyopuyo!! Quest and Puyopuyo!! Quest Arcade were nominated for a CEDEC Award in 2014 in the Game Design department, citing the ingenious linkage of the smartphone and arcade games creates a fulfilling play cycle for players. The pair did not receive highest accolade award, which was given to Kantai Collection.
Status
While the Puyopuyo!! Quest servers remain online as of April 2020, it was announced in early 2017 that the Puyopuyo!! Quest Arcade servers would be terminated on 1 April of that year, 03:59. Since the announcement, playing the game via arcade cabinets was made impossible.
In other media
PuyoQue Cafe
PuyoQue Cafe is a limited time concept cafe establishment, featuring decoration and menu items inspired by the game's characters. The first installment was opened in Shibuya from September to November 2014, later extended to December the same year. A second installment opened from February to May 2015 at six locations across Japan, including Osaka, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Ikebukuro, Nagoya and Miyagi.
