Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC

Genre: Puzzle

Number of Players: 1 - 2

Support: HD 720p, Leaderboards, PlayStation Network Compatible

Companies over the years have done some rather questionable things with their video game properties that have left some of us scratching our heads. It hasn’t always been a failure, but doing something like giving Donkey Kong a rhythm game probably wasn’t one of the best choices in the history on Nintendo and the company teaming up and taking the iconic Mario and pairing him up in an attempt to exploit the Olympics with Sega’s own Sonic is about as interesting as having a video game that has Kratos playing board games with Master Chief. There are times though when a company can put familiar characters into a video game that sounds incredibly outlandish but instead proves to be incredibly addictive and fun.

Capcom as we all know has many big names to their credit and one of these is the legendary Street Fighter franchise. Twenty years however have only seen a total of three legitimate sequels with a fourth just around the corner. Instead, we’ve been given wave after wave of Street Fighter that ends with things like Turbo, Championship, Alpha, Zero, EX, Super-Hyper Alpha Oblivion, and the list just keeps growing. The decision to merge familiar faces from the Street Fighter series as well as those of Darkstalkers into a fighting game was one that I think most gamers groaned at and decided up front that it just wasn’t a good idea. I would fall into that category, and I would be wrong.

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix isn’t a fighting game, not in the classic sense, but it is a puzzle game and those sell at an uncontrollable rate if they are good enough. The game quickly became a huge success and also a very rare title to find on the original PlayStation that in some cases still commands a high price on eBay assuming of course the seller is greedy enough. The game has been reissued over the years on other platforms and as the part of Capcom collections, but it’s now a part of the world of downloadable video games, and in a high definition version.

The game presents fighters such as Ken, Ryu, Chun-Li and Sakura from the Street Fighter series and pits them against the Darkstalkers own Felicia, Hsien-Ko, Morrigan and Donovan, all in a super deformed looking meaning a great deal of cuteness. The characters will still trade kicks and punches, but that’s not what you’ll be in control of, at least not outright. This is a puzzle game, and the idea behind it is to connect the different colored gems that descend down the screen into larger gems or chains. However, this isn’t like other puzzle games where once you’ve matched three or more of the same color they disappear. Instead, the gems must come into contact with a Crash Gem of the same color, and you can’t miss these since they are glowing orbs. Once the crash orb comes into contact with the right color gem, any others that are touching it will also be eliminated. The more gems there are, the bigger the chain and this results in gems being dropped on your opponents side, but these won’t be activated immediately and will take, usually, five gem drops in order to be active and ready for play. There are also the diamond gems which will eliminate gems of a particular color depending on which you touch and when using these, the gems don’t’ have to be connected in any way.

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix now brings a two-player online mode into things, but the game goes on step further by allowing players to play online and check their rankings against other players around the world. There is even a spectator mode if you want to just get an idea of the competition that’s out there. The game also brings over the Dreamcast modes, X, Y, Z and the X’ or"X dash" mode. X is the classic version of the game that most know and love, but if you’re not up for going against the computer, the Y-Mode might be more your style as this allows the game to be played in a familiar style where gems break once three of the same color touch. Playing Z-Mode on the other hand changes the gameplay to a version where you are rotating 2x2 squares are the gems continue to push upwards, and I think we’ve all played a game that uses that method at least once in our gaming career.

The game overall looks like the Super Puzzle Fighter that appeared years ago, though with some minor improvements in the graphics. Some elements tend to be a bit sharper, especially the playing field itself and some of the character displays prior to starting the game. In the game itself though, the background tend to look a bit blurred in my opinion and could have stood to have a bit more improvement, but really, you don’t always tend to concentrate of these since that’s not really where the action is. It’s really hard to completely mess up the look of a puzzle game though, and it’s safe to say that this isn’t a game that is going to look horrible by any means.

It’s not the fighting game that you know, but the unique twist is something that has made Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo a huge hit with fans. If you’ve never played this additive twist on the Street Fighter and Darkstalker brands, this is a great time to do so. There’s no need to worry about quarter circle and half circle movements followed by pressing a punch of kick button, but instead just matching up colors, detonating them, and finding that hours of your life have somehow slipped away from you.

-mike-