Being quite new to the competitive puzzle gaming universe and not being so new to the good old Capcom Street fighter universe I found the mix quite hard to swallow, at first that is, but after three to five quick games of sped up split screen Tetris ( Because that’s all it meant to me) I was really quite addicted. Now, Capcom haven’t delved into their past of old retro games like Street fighter for a long while, and to see them come back to Street fighter is an excitement for many fans of the genre. But if you’re new to the competitive puzzling gameplay and just want to taste a bit of Street fighter again, don’t be too distressed to find the relation to the old series is quite minor.

Gameplay:

The basic idea of Puzzle fighter is to defeat your opponent by piling on ‘gems’ until they hit the top, and you do this by destroying your own as the gems move down. Similar to the classic Tetris (or any other block eliminating puzzles), groups of blocks move down the screen and slowly fill up the space; it is your job to fit these blocks in the best way possible which means matching colours, until the same colour ‘orb’ or ‘explosive gem’ comes down and takes out the linked gems. These then, with enough combos, drop things called ‘counter gems’ on the opponent which are a lot harder to get rid of. The game however does get a little bit more complicated than that and this gives it the fast paced strategy that makes this game addictive, and having an opponent makes you want to speed things up a little bit more. The games are often extremely short, and every one you finish will make you want to play another. A problem to note though was that if you’re looking for a lot of Street fighter action, you’re not going to find it here as it’s just the theme of the puzzle. To some that might seem quite obvious, but I honestly didn’t know what to expect before I played it. The characters from the theme, I felt, didn’t play much of a part. Before you start the game you can choose any one of your favourite characters from the Street fighter universe but the only difference they seem to give is how the counter gems fall. Whether this was for balance reasons or concentration upon the puzzle itself I don’t know, but it didn’t really add much strategy to the game. On a high note however, there is quite a lot here for an arcade game. You have online, two-four players locally or you can face the computer, within this you also have four different modes you can play (X’, X, Y and Z). ‘Y’ mode takes on some of the retro Tetris rules, taking out the ‘crash gems’ and allowing you to eliminate gems which are lined up in fours. ‘Z’ mode plays from the bottom up and adds a cursor for each player; you use crash gems to eliminate the speed flow of gems. The extra ‘X’ mode on the other hand only really adds subtle changes to the game play, but, nevertheless these are noticeable changes which are accepted easily for an arcade game.

Graphics:

Super Puzzle Fighter II is a very colourful game, the classic retro theme does suite the puzzling genre very well. The artwork looks very familiar though for the characters, and they do look a bit blurry compared to the nice smooth background pictures. I also question the ‘HD remix’, I’m not sure what the previous title looked like but I can imagine this not looking that much better on a HD. Other than that, it will certainly remind you of the good old days of playing Street fighter, whether that’s good or not, you decide.

Sound:

The sound is spot on, nothing astounding or worth noting especially, but there’s nothing to complain about either.

Longevity:

Other than the addicting game itself, here is where the game shines. There’s so much replay-ability for a small arcade game. The Single player against the computer can be very challenging as there are four difficulty modes (Easy, Normal, Hard and Expert), you can also play against a friend, or there’s the online mode where you can do ranked matches (for leader board scores) or unranked matches if you want to be a little less competitive. And we can’t forget the achievements to work for also adding to the replay value. So there’s a lot for you to do here, and you are definitely getting your moneys worth.

Overall:

As a whole, on first glance this game isn’t an arcade game I would usually buy but after playing about five short games then yes, I would buy it. It looks good, it plays well, it’s easy to pick up and the Street fighter theme compliments the puzzling gameplay. If you hate Street fighter but love these types of puzzles then go ahead and buy it, but if you love Street fighter and are not keen on these types of puzzles I would move along, if you love both, what are you waiting for?