This week’s review is for Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo by Capcom for the arcades. OMG! A puzzle game by Capcom! It’s enough to make any hardcore fighting game fanboy’s head explode. However, since I like Smash Bros., I can play it. This game is interesting if not original. Line blocks up into bigger blocks to smash them and toss crap all over the opponent. Sure, it has been done before. Sure, it has been done better. But so what? It’s chibi Dan being molested by several chibi Felicias. If that isn’t enough to get you playing, I just don’t know how you sleep at night.

Name: Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
Game Ownership: Are you kidding?
Game Status: Beat all difficulty levels.
How it was Acquired: MAME
Condition when Bought: N/A
Game Type: Puzzle

Preliminary Comments:
Fact: Contrary to the title, there was no Puzzle Fighter, Puzzle Fighter II, Puzzle Fighter II: Championship Edition, Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, or Super Puzzle Fighter II.

Rant: ^Amazing, no?

Rant: Why? Why did Chun Li’s block pattern have to suck so much?

Rant: “I have proven the difference between us: you just suck.”

Rant: “Don’t tell me, you only know how to play fighting games?”

Rant: “It’s not whether I win or lose, just as long as I piss you off!”

Graphics - 7.5
Graphics were not too bad. There wasn’t anything visually stimulating, but this game wasn’t made to impress you with shiny graphics. Blocks and such have a nice little shine animation that is worth mentioning cause it keeps them from getting too boring looking. All the backgrounds in the game are from Street Fighter Alpha and Darkstalkers, so they don’t score too high in the originality department. Character design was interesting because they decided to go for a chibi look. With the exception of Morrigan looking fat and ugly, everyone else was pretty good. Dan was zany-looking as always, and Akuma has never been funnier looking than in this game. Animation in the game had some notable points to it. The characters do little attack animations to each other when they send junk blocks to their opponent, which are pretty humorous. Also, characters have different stances and poses depending on whether they are losing or winning. Other than that, there isn’t really any animation of note.

Sound - 7.0
All the music are remixes of the songs from Darkstalkers and Street Fighter Alpha. I never really cared for either of those soundtracks, and I don’t really care too much for this one either. The songs are all remixed to fit in with the cutseyness of the chibi forms. I do admit, however, that the Alpha songs fit in more into this game than they do into Alpha. Sound effects are average. I like the glass shattering noise that happens when you clear blocks. Other than that, nothing really interesting. Character voices are all reused from all the other games that they all came from except for a few new ones for Dan (I think).

Story - N/A
As far as I know, there is no story for this game. It’s just beat levels until you win.

However, this would be a good time to state that this game has some of the best win quotes of any other Capcom game ever. Check them out sometime.

Fun - 7.5
This game plays considerably differently to many other VS Tetris-like puzzle games. Blocks of two colors drop from the top. At some point, a colored orb falls with the blocks. When the orb touches a block of the same color, the block explodes, and the opponent gets junk blocks thrown on them that have a colored number. When the number winds down to zero, the junk block turns into a normal block that is the same color as the number. The point of the game is to fill up your opponent’s screen so that they lose. Sound simple, right? There’s a little more to it. When four blocks of the same color are formed in a box, they form a larger block. When that block is destroyed, it sends more junk over to the opponents. If you clear a block large enough, you can kill the opponent in one hit! It is almost impossible to beat someone if you don’t form large blocks, so it makes some semblance of strategy.

This puzzle game is more action based than other puzzle games, which may appeal more to the non-puzzle crowd (i.e. Fighting game fans). The tide of a battle can change at any moment. Many puzzle gamers denounce the game because of its random nature, but I think it is a fun way to keep the game interesting. With all of its good effort, this game is fun to play against friends, but the game quickly tires out for a lone player. One reason for this is because of the lack of variety in play modes. There is only one play mode: VS. Fighting the same computer controlled characters gets a bit boring after a while. However, there is another problem which ultimately affects the whole game, and that is the pattern system.

In this game, each character’s junk blocks fall in a specific pattern of colors, which is shown to you when you choose a character. The pros of this system are that it actually differentiates the characters a little and gives way for some clever little details (Examples: Ryu’s pattern are four colors in columns while Ken’s pattern are four colors in rows and Dan’s pattern is all red blocks). The cons of this system are that some of the characters are unplayable because their patterns set up extremely easily for someone to counter. I understand Dan’s pattern since he’s made to suck and all, but why did Chun Li have to get stuck with a crappy pattern too? I can’t even use her! Othen than these individual problems, the pattern system starts to wear on the game a little. Whenever the opponent attacks you, it will always fall in the same pattern no matter what, which makes the game really predictable after a while.

Difficulty - 7.5
The CPU in the game is hard, like other Capcom games, but is not almost unbeatable. The difficulty seems fairer than in other games (*coughmagicaldrop2cough*), but new players can still get crushed by comps rather easily. It may be hard at first, but once you get the hang of it, you can fight on the comp’s level pretty easily.

Replayable - 7.5
Since it is a unique game all in its own, it is worth going back to every once in a while for a quick fix. However, the games flaws will cause you to lose interest again pretty quickly. I must say that I do recommend this game to those who have never played a puzzle game before as a jumping point to other, better puzzle games. It’s a very underrated genre.

Posted in Arcade |