Pokémon Puzzle Challenge is a Puzzle Game for the Game Boy Color, developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo in 2000, the same year Pokémon Gold and Silver saw release in North America.
Like with Pokémon Puzzle League, the game ditched the Tetris Attack label from the initial localization of Panel de Pon as the original SNES game had nothing to do with Tetris despite sharing a title. In Japan, the game is titled Pokémon de Panepon. Panepon is abbreviation of Panel de Pon in Japan which is an alternative way to refer to the game series. However, when used as a game title, its used for the character-based Nintendo IPs rebrand games. The first time this abbreviation was used this way was in Tetris Attack's Japanese title, Yoshi's Panepon.
Puzzle Challenge saw release in Japan on September 21 and was published in the United States of America on December 4. It was later reissued on the Nintendo 3DS as part of the Virtual Console outside Japan in 2014, but Japan never saw the reissue and fell victim to the closure of the 3DS eShop in 2023 with the option to buy it blocked on March 27.
It came with several modes, one of them being Challenge Mode where Ethan takes on a journey to prove himself a master of the game by travelling across Johto and challenging the eight gym leaders at puzzle battles. Once he defeats all gym leaders are beaten, he will then challenge the Elite Found challenge the champion to complete his journey. Unlike Gold and Silver, Ethan has all three starter Pokémon from the get go and will unlock more Pokémon by meeting the requirements. The game also allows several eggs to get hatched to unlock some baby Pokémon to use. Other modes involve puzzles such as meeting a quota of erasing all blocks within a move limit and an endless mode. There is also a mode where one player can challenge another in a puzzle battle. Of course, not all traces of Panel De Pon were erased, you can enter a code to access an Embedded Precursor version with Lip being the Player Character, effectively making it the first time she appeared outside Japan.
Tropes:
- Defeat Equals Friendship: Beating bonus trainers after fulfilling certain conditions in the Challenge mode unlocks their Pokémon for you to use.
- Dolled-Up Installment: There are several blatant signs that this game was originally going to be an original Panel de Pon game, most visibly the terrain; the "towns" and "roads" still look like they're floating above the surrounding world the way Panel de Pon's sky islands would have been. Unlike previous games in the series, this one was a Pokémon game in all territories; the dolling-up seems to have happened during development. The devs were evidently fond of the original "Panel de Pon GB", as they left in a secret button code to access what remained of it.
- Embedded Precursor: A secret code allows you to play a hidden version of Panel de Pon, including Lip as the player character. It's accessible from the "this game is only playable on the Game Boy Color" screen, so it's even possible to play it on an older black-and-white system (it can be played on later systems, but a different code has to be put in to reset the game in backwards-compatible mode).
- Final Boss: The last opponent for Ethan to face in his journey is Lance and his Dragonite.
- Harder Than Hard: This game has Super Hard and Intense above Hard.
- Hint System: This game adds a hint-on-payment option in puzzle mode. Each round of 10 puzzles fully completed earns a star, which can be spent on any puzzle to have the game show you the first move to make.
- Justified Extra Lives: The "lives" in Challenge mode are the remaining Pokemon Ethan has left on his person.
- License-Added Game: It's a Panel de Pon game that exchanges the characters from those of the SNES original to those of Pokémon Gold and Silver.
- Life Meter: The Challenge Mode uses this for your opponent instead of another board to try and top them out. The opponent's HP goes down for every chain and combo you make, and you have to knock out your opponent before you top out.
- Long Song, Short Scene: The game has danger music that plays when you're facing imminent defeat. The True Final Boss (only available on Hard or higher) has two themes, his normal battle theme and his unique Danger mode music. His normal theme is 2 minutes and 15 seconds long, which you might get to hear fully if you're playing on Hard, but his Danger theme is 1 minute 31 seconds, longer than any other Danger theme, and after 50 seconds is mostly pointless, because the Danger music will almost never play that long. Either you'll escape, or more likely, you'll lose before the song even gets to a minute. And on Intense you probably won't hear his normal theme for more than 30 seconds at a time.
- Meaningless Lives: Intense mode replaces the Justified Extra Lives from lower difficulties with a Continue counter that functionally serves this purpose. This shifts the focus from completing the game without losing any Pokemon/getting a Game Over to doing so with as few Continues as possible.
- Pattern-Coded Eggs: Four eggs are available as unlockables. Magby's egg has flames on the bottom, Elekid's egg is yellow with stripes, Igglybuff's egg is pink with swirls, and Cleffa's egg is pink with stars.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: During the end credits, the female Japanese developers' names are highlighted in pink. This isn't the case for the non-Japanese people though (maybe because English speakers would be more likely to recognize their genders from their names).
- Secret Character: The player can sometimes be challenged by trainers if they fulfill certain requirements after completing a gym. Defeat the trainer, and they reward you with a Pokémon. They can get Pikachu, Pichu, Sentret, Bellossom, Togepi, and Marill from the challenge mode ladder. Meanwhile, Igglybuff, Cleffa, Elekid, and Magby can be hatched from eggs, but have less modes available for them to be used in.
- Spin-Off: It features Pokémon from these games and retells a simplified version of Ethan's (as it was released before Crystal, Ethan was the only player character as in Gold and Silver) journey to defeat Gym Leaders and the Elite Four in a Puzzle Game format.
- Trrrilling Rrrs: Downplayed. Karen describes herself as "verrry good", but it's unknown if she's actually trilling them or just dragging the word out.
- True Final Boss: Lance and his Dragonite can only be reached on Hard mode and higher difficulties. Normal and Easy mode end with Karen and Clair, respectively.