Puyopuyo eSports", the first national representatives have been chosen! Official report from the "National eSports Championship 2019 IBARAKI" Ibaraki Prefecture Special Preliminary Representative Round.

The official report of the "Puyo Puyo eSports" "General Division" Ibaraki Prefecture Special Advance Representative Round of the "National Inter-Prefectural eSports Championship 2019 IBARAKI", a cultural program of the "Iki Iki Ibaraki Yume Kokutai" has arrived.

PuyoPuyo eSports" is a dedicated eSports distribution game of the latest title in the nationally popular action puzzle "PuyoPuyo" series. In addition to the standard "PuyopuyoPuyoDori" rules, the game includes two carefully selected "PuyoPuyo Fever" rules that allow players to aim for one-hit reversals and easily enjoy large chain reactions. In addition to the well-known characters, "Puyo Puyo Fever" and "Puyo Puyo Fever Fever" rules are also included. Quest" and "Puyo Puyo Chronicle!　It is the definitive version of "Puyo Puyo" with Internet battle and offline tournament modes.

This time, the official report of the "Puyo Puyo eSports" "General Division" Ibaraki Prefecture Special Preliminary Round of the "Iki Ibaraki Yume Kokutai" Cultural Program "National Prefectural eSports Championship 2019 IBARAKI" held on April 6 (Sat) at the AEON MALL Tsukuba East Mall. The official report of the "Iki Iki Ibaraki Yume Kokutai (Ibaraki Dream National Government)" has arrived, so let's take a look at it.

SEGA Games Inc. held the "Puyo Puyo eSports" "General Section" Ibaraki Prefecture Special Preliminary Round for the "National eSports Championship 2019 IBARAKI", a cultural program of the "Iki Ibaraki Yume Kokutai", on April 6 (Sat) at the AEON MALL Tsukuba East Mall. This event was held at the AEON MALL Tsukuba East Mall.

This event is a special preliminary tournament to determine the host prefecture's quota (only Ibaraki Prefecture, the host prefecture, will have two representatives) for the "Puyo Puyo eSports" division of the "National Inter-Prefectural eSports Championships 2019 IBARAKI" scheduled to be held in October this year. It was held at the top of the qualifying rounds held in all prefectures in Japan. Since it was the first preliminary competition in Japan, the opening ceremony was held in a grand manner.

The opening ceremony featured a lively ribbon-cutting ceremony with the appearance of Akira Hirakata, Executive Director of the Japan eSports Federation; Naoko Ishida, Director General of the Ibaraki Prefectural Government's National Athletic Meet and Sports Games for the Disabled Bureau; Osamu Ohashi, eSports Executive Committee Chairman of Sega Games Corporation; Sonic, Carbuncle and the mascot character of the Ibaraki National Athletic Meet, Iba Lucky. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was held in a lively atmosphere.


First, all participants (44 people) challenged themselves to a score attack to see how many points they could score in a chain of games in two minutes as a qualifying round.

From there, the top 16 players advanced to the final tournament, where they competed against each other (two sets and two games won). From the final tournament, Yurika Tachibana served as MC, and professional player Oka gave a lecture on exhibition matches and how to set up a chain before the final tournament, and the audience was excited to see her perform a big chain.


Unlike previous e-sports tournaments, this year's tournament was open only to those who live, work, or go to school in Ibaraki Prefecture. The winners of the tournament were "Zairo," a professional player who works in Ibaraki, and "Kazuki," a player who does not have a professional license but achieved top-level results in last year's Puyo Puyo Cup. The final game was played between Zairo and Kazuki, who was the top level player in last year's Puyo Puyo Cup.


In the final match, Zairo was the first to set up a big chain, but Kazuki responded with a chain, and the two players played at an even level.

In the second set, Zairo's momentum continued, and he won the first game with a whopping 13 chains. In the second game, Zairo again achieved a big chain and won the second game in a row. Kazuki had been showing excellent game management up to that point, but Zairo showed even better handling skills than Kazuki, winning both sets in straight sets. In a match played in the manner of a professional player, Zairo won the title of representative of Ibaraki Prefecture.


＜Interview with Zairo
--Congratulations on your victory. First of all, please give us your honest impression of your victory.
Zairo: For now, I am relieved and honored to have represented my prefecture. I think this will be a tournament where the fiercest players from all over the country will gather, so I want to fight without embarrassment as one of the fiercest players.

--Did you do any special training for this tournament?
Zairo: I usually don't think about the competition too much, and when I get home from work, I usually recruit opponents via Twitter and other means and distribute the results.

--However, the preliminary round was a score attack, so I practiced a little to get a good score in the streaming. Was it different from the qualifying rounds of regular tournaments (PuyoPuyo Cup qualifying rounds are league matches, while the PuyoPuyo Championship is a tournament)?
Zairo: Yes, it was. I thought that anything was fine as long as it exceeded the borders. With the rules this time, if you try to pile up too high, you may fail to score points, so I tried to pile up in a way that I could consistently score the border, and I think that's how I ended up in this position.

--What was the most memorable game this time?
Zairo: I guess the final. I think I scored 100,000 points in the chain, and 100,000 points is one of the indicators of a big chain in the "Puyo Puyo" world, so I was happy to be able to score that in a tournament like this.

--In the final tournament, I think the level of competition was the same as in regular tournaments such as the Puyo Puyo Cup, but you won both sets 2-0 in straight sets.
Zairo: That's right. There seemed to be a lot of participants. As for the final, it only ended up 4-0. I think we were in the groove (laughs). In the first round of the final tournament, we lost a set in a very bad way, and I was almost upset, but we were able to recover from that, and I think that was a big factor today.

--I think it was important for me to recover from that. Can you close with your enthusiasm for "Puyo Puyo" in 2019 as well as the main tournament?
Zairo: It's not in my nature to be too preoccupied with producing results, so I want to play "Puyopuyo" in a way that I can be close to the people who support me when I usually distribute my games.

＜Preliminary rounds of the "National eSports Championship 2019 IBARAKI" to be held in May
Okayama AEON MALL Okayama May 3
AEON MALL Sapporo Hiraoka, Hokkaido May 3
Ehime AEON MALL Imabari Shintoshi May 4
AEON MALL Sakai Kitahanada, Osaka May 5
Gifu AEON MALL Kakamigahara May 5
Kagawa AEON MALL Takamatsu May 6
Miyagi AEON MALL Natori May 6
Tochigi AEON MALL Sano Shintoshi May 11
Shiga AEON MALL Kusatsu May 11
Okinawa AEON MALL Okinawa Lycoming May 11
Niigata AEON MALL Niigata Minami May 11
Kochi AEON MALL Kochi May 12
Ibaraki AEON MALL Tsukuba May 18
Iwate AEON MALL Morioka May 18
Kagoshima AEON MALL Kagoshima May 19
Chiba AEON MALL Makuhari-Shintoshin May 25
Nara AEON MALL Yamato Koriyama May 25
Miyazaki AEON MALL Miyazaki May 25
AEON MALL Makuhari-Shintoshin, Tokyo May 26
Fukushima AEON MALL Iwaki Onahama May 26

Product Information
Puyopuyo eSports
Compatibility: PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch
・Release date: Available now (October 25, 2018)
Price: 1,999 yen (including tax)
　*Downloadable from PlayStation Store and Nintendo eShop
　*500 yen (including tax) until April 10, 2019 (Wednesday)
Genre: Action puzzle
Number of players: 1 to 4
　*Internet support: 2 to 4 players
　Nintendo Switch version Local play supported: 2-4 players
Publisher and distributor: SEGA Games Inc.
CERO: A (for all ages)

*The arcade version of "Puyo Puyo eSports" is scheduled to go live on April 18, 2019 (Thursday).

©SEGA