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Tetris has many imitators but few real competitors. The likes of Pac-Attack, Hatris, Blockout, and Tecmo Stackers invited no crazed fandoms. But then there was Puyo Puyo, a cute puzzle game that spread like a virus across every major console in the 1990s. In North America it was known as Kirby's Avalanche on the Super NES and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine on the Genesis, but in Japan Puyo Puyo wore no disguises. It spawned its own merchandise, spin-offs, and lodged itself in broader pop culture for a time. Puyo Puyo endures today, even after the fall of its original developer Compile. Dr. Mario may have Nintendo's backing, but it's Puyo Puyo that put up the biggest challenge to the Tetris throne, and it's Puyo Puyo that Sega now mashes up with its competition.

Puyo Puyo Tetris serves up the two falling-block titans side by side. A player can adopt one game while the opponent takes on the other, though the rules stay firm. Puyo Puyo matches up four blobs at a time while dealing with gray neutral blocks that fall from above. Tetris stacks shapes to clear lines, and the penalty arises with annoyingly gapped lines that appear below your stack of blocks. One mode also lets players shift between the two puzzle approaches in the midst of a match. It doesn't combine the two games into some monstrous fusion of blobs and blocks, but handling both play styles at once is compelling enough.

Import Barrier: The basic gameplay is easy to navigate, and even the more detailed challenges in various modes aren't that hard to figure out.

Chances of a Domestic Release: Surprisingly dim, considering how easy a localization would be. Sega has announced nothing so far, leaving some to speculate that their Tetris contract covered only one market.

Odd Omission: It's strange that Sega didn't throw in Columns for good measure.

Some see the anime industry in terms of its two sure-fire fan lures: giant robots and cute girls. The two ebb and flow, interweaving like yin and yang through an anime ecosystem of model kits, overpriced DVDs, and licensed video games. The crossover strategy-RPG is largely held by the giant robots, as symbolized by the ongoing Super Robot Taisen series. Yet Super Heroine Chronicle aims to even the score.

Much like Super Robot Taisen, Banpresto's Super Heroine Chronicle is a pile-up of characters from various anime series: Louise, Tiffania, and Siesta from Familiar of Zero; Houki, Cecelia, Laura, Huang Lingyin, and Charlotte from Infinite Stratos; Rena, Rika, and Mion from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni; Di Gi, Rabi, and Petit from Di Gi Charat; Aria and Shirayuki from Hidan no Aria; Koto and Yase from Kyousougiga; Kurumi, Haruka, Aoi, and Tesla from Kaito Tenshi Twin Angel; Tsubasa, Hibiki, and Chris from Senki Zessho Symphogear; and for the old-school crowd, Rem from Dream Hunter Rem. It also features Super Sonico, who, I have just been informed, is an anime heroine and not a gray-market knockoff of Sonic the Hedgehog.

All of these young women clash in strategic formations that burst into close-up battles littered with elaborate attacks and high-pitched catchphrases. It's primarily a showpiece for fans who long to see Symphogear or Twin Angel in huge-headed form, and not really for the casual player who just wants a solid strategy-RPG. Super Heroine Chronicle also invents a few original characters for its own limited use. But hey, perhaps Meru and Noel and Eva Valentine will headline the first Super Heroine Chronicle Original Generation game in a few years.

Import Barrier: There's plenty of dialogue to sit through. But if you can figure out a Super Robot Taisen game, you can figure out Super Heroine Chronicle.

Chances of a Domestic Release: Pretty darned low. Most publishers wouldn't bother with a game where the most recognizable property is Familiar of Zero.

Odd Omission: Plenty, considering how many characters Bandai could pick. Where are the heroines from Cosmos Pink Shock, Sailor Victory, or Legaciam?

Yakuza remains Sega's most prestigious series in Japan. Each new game invariably boasts celebrity talent, realistic in-game diversions, and elaborate tales about Japan's criminal element. Sadly, few of these strengths really count in the North American market, where we tend to prefer our mobster melodrama strained through Grand Theft Auto's more obscene mischief. The Yakuza series is always a wild card when it comes to localizations; North America got the first four Yakuza games and the zombie filled Dead Souls, but not the fifth proper Yakuza or either PSP brawler. And we certainly didn't get Kanzan, the Yakuza spin-off that re-cast all of the modern-day game's characters into medieval Kyoto. Yakuza Restoration does the same thing at the end of the Edo period and the dawn of the Meiji era, and it's not coming out here either.

Restoration drops many recurring Yakuza characters into 19th century, and series hero Kazuma Kiryu lands in the role of revolutionary Ryoma Sakamoto. Though the game opens with a rendition of Ryoma's assassination, the ensuing tale leads up to this particular moment. Kazuma-as-Ryoma makes his way through the turbulent times that saw Japan adopting Western technology and dumping its shogun. Yakuza Restoration doesn't play it completely accurately, of course, and that's all part of the fun: fights play out with swords, fists, and firearms that range from pistols to gatling guns and cannons. And combat's only one part of the equation. The crisply rendered streets of the Edo era's last days offer all sorts of diversions: stage dramas, singing, casino games, hostess clubs (or the 19th-century equivalent, at least), and pets. One bonus mode unfurls a dungeon-crawler RPG with card-game battles, and another finds our samurai hero tending gardens and fishing at home. Well, that's historically accurate. I'm sure the real Ryoma Sakamoto went fishing at some point.

Import Barrier: Knowing Japanese is pretty much essential to enjoying the game, unless you're just after the swordfights and shootouts. Either way, the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 are region-free.

Chances of a Domestic Release: Sega said no, and fans aren't happy. At a time when each new Sonic game has the Internet howling and an Aliens sequel falls flat, Sega could do a lot worse than localizing another Yakuza.

Odd Omission: Not a whole lot. If you could (or even if you couldn't) wedge some pastime into mid-1800s Japan, it's probably here.

Just who are Escha and Logy? Well, Escha Malier is a bubbly young alchemist from a family of farmers, and she has the requisite dead mother that many RPG protagonists require for purposes of motivation and lingering tragedy. Logix “Logy” Fiscario is a sedate young alchemist and mechanic who hails from a distant city and doesn't talk about his past. Together, they're mismatched partners on the wackiest police force to ever write a parking ticket agents in the Unentered Area Special Investigation Bureau, and they're exploring the region around the town of Colseit. I suspect they're named after eschatology and logos, but I can't confirm that. Either way, you'll have to pick one of them if you want to play the latest Atelier game.

Should you choose Escha as the protagonist, you'll get a somewhat lighthearted story focused on Escha and Logy going about day-to-day assignments and crafting items both magical and mundane. It's all in keeping with previous Atelier titles. Should you want more exploration and weight in your RPG experience, playing as Logy opens up heavier themes and more chances to explore. It's a bit like the dual-character options in Atelier Iris 2, though players are locked into their choice of lead. That aside, the general plotline remains the same, as does the supporting cast of medical officer Lucille Ernella, airship technician Awin Sidelet, researcher Threia Hazelgrimm, swordswoman Linca, and a treasure-seeker named Reyfer Luckberry. Yes, I'm sure that's his actual name in the English version.

Aside from divergent protagonists, Atelier Escha & Logy is largely a refinement of previous games. The battle system brings aboard six characters at a time (three in front, and three in the back), and Escha and Logy can use a “double draw” command to enhance a tincture or gewgaw's effectiveness. There's a broader range of items to combine as well, and ancient relics break down into various alchemy components. Such item-crafting stuff is standard in many RPGs, but the Atelier series still leads the pack when it comes to the sheer density of alchemical tinkering.

Dark Souls II arrives next week, and fans are prepared. Across the nation, they're donning their hair-shirts and affixing their thumbscrews, all while their iPods pipe an obliterating cycle of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music into their ears.

We jest, but Dark Souls openly promoted itself with the tagline “Prepare to Die,” and the sequel appends a telling “again” to that phrase. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls let players loose in a vast, dingy deathscape of a kingdom full of monsters, traps, sudden drops, and another convenient methods of inadvertently doing oneself in. That's how you'll learn to progress in the game, to guide your assembled character through the hazards in action-RPG fashion, gathering better weapons and dribbled-out backstory. And if you should die in Dark Souls …well, you can roam around as a decaying spirit. It's actually somewhat liberating.

Dark Souls II doesn't cut players much slack in this sense. It's even crueler to the undead: slain adventurers have their maximum health lowered if they die too often in pseudo-zombie status, and other players can now invade the game sessions of deceased souls, just as they can break into those of living characters. The combat mechanics of Dark Souls improve mostly by increment, with a better jumping method and little weaponry refinements, and the game promises to mess with players' heads through hallucinations, acrophobia, and other things that may well distress the player in real life. It's all the series can do until Dark Souls III figures out how to hop from the console, wend snakelike around the room, and tear out the player's femoral artery. Then fans will love it even more.

Here we go. The new-generation console war was far too quiet for the past two months, but now we have a notable salvo from the Xbox One to the PlayStation 4. It's Titanfall, a futuristic first-person shooter with giant battle-robots and a Call of Duty pedigree. And it's the first big Microsoft exclusive since the Xbox One's launch. Of course, it's also out for the PC, and there's an Xbox 360 treatment coming later this month. But the Xbox One version carries the highest expectations here.

Titanfall unfolds in a region of colonized solar systems called the Frontier. There, the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation is at odds with the Militia, a hodgepodge of colonists and criminals who rise up against Big Manufacturing in violent ways. Their wars play out with all the gritty urban carnage and ambient chatter of a Halo or Killzone, but the giant mechanical suits change things up a bit. Stylistic amalgamations of Lost Planet suits and Michael Bay's Transformers, the Titans include the multi-purpose Atlas mecha, the heavily armored Ogre, and the speedy Stryder. Not as diverse as say, the Metal Warriors lineup of spider-mechs and rolling cannon platforms, but it's a good start.

Players can hop into Titans and pilot them just as easily as they go about regular combat, and other players can ride on other Titans, hijack enemy mecha, and stage team-up attacks to bring down the robot soldiers. While roaming around in a Titan has undeniable advantages when it comes to attacking (and ripping enemy pilots from their mecha like a vet pulling kittens from a birth canal), the game balances things by giving on-foot soldiers greater mobility and useful anti-Titan weapons. The multiplayer modes support up to six players on each team, and various AI recruits and Titans let up to 50 characters roam the battlegrounds. A shame there's no cross-platform play.

Yoshi's New Island poses a shocking revision to the original Yoshi's Island. The old Super NES game wrapped up with infant Mario and Luigi reunited, but Yoshi's New Island reveals that the two brothers are at the wrong house. Baby Luigi is then abducted by the archmage Kamek, leaving an entire Yoshi colony to guide Baby Mario to safety. Yes, the happy ending of Yoshi's Island was a lie all this time. It's just like Chrono Cross and Advance Guardian Heroes and those Willow sequels that killed off half of the main characters.

Yet Yoshi's New Island is still a happy game, just like the beloved old Yoshi's Island and the less beloved and more recent Yoshi's Story and Yoshi's Island DS. A Yoshi ferries Baby Mario through Crayola-bright levels filled with cute foes and novel ideas, and Baby Mario floats away and shrieks plaintively when his Yoshi mount is struck. The major Yoshi evolution this time around is the ability to lay and fire enormous eggs, usually though eating similarly sized enemies. Certain levels also see Yoshis turn into helicopters, submarines, minecarts, sleds, balloons, and jackhammers. Most of the enemies are returning bit players, from the flying Shy Guys to the bluish hedgehogs who most certainly do not represent any former rival company mascots. New Island does, however, have shapeshifting and metal variants on the standard Shy Guy. It may be a nice relaunch of everything that made Yoshi's Island a standout in the chaotic times of 1995, though developer Arzest was formed from the ruins of Artoon…the makers of the well-meaning but unadventurous Yoshi's Island DS.