Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo

The Good
Puzzle Fighter II is plain and simple the best puzzle game I've ever played (in fact I haven't played many of them) but at least it puts anything like Tetris and Dr. Mario to total shame.

A very long time ago when I was still a boy my older sister rented this game on the Playstation (this was rather early in the Playstation's live) and I liked it quite a bit, we had a lot of fun with it. Now, a long time has passed and I was able to get the game boy advance version of this game, to figure out it's just the exact same as I remembered it was on the Playstation, and it's just as fun.

So yeah, this is a puzzle game featuring characters from the Street Fighter series. You basically stack up falling blocks of 4 colors in a screen that has room for 6x13, and occasionally, a "bomb" will come (instead of a block), and when set it will destroy all block of the same colors adjacent to it (and all blocks of the same color adjacent to those adjacent to it, etc...), so the goal it to make big chain of adjacent block of the same color, then make them all exploding at the same time. When your screen is full, you lose, and when the screen of your opponent is full, you win. When the blocks explode, a equivalent number of new block will fall on your opponent's screen as soon as the piece currently falling is set, but those pieces remain passive for 5 turns (i.e. they cannot explode even if a bomb is set on them) so this is a very serious penalty, as not only it can fool the opponent's plans on building his stuff, but also he cannot destroy that until 5 turns. This allows to put what we used to call "timed bombs", which are set to explode once the countdown reach zero. Finally, there is the diamonds, which are rare, but very useful, they make all blocks of a color of your chose explode (by placing the diamond on the top of a block of the desired color). Generally, this lead to a powerful attack. So yeah, destroying a few blocks a time will make the character on the center of the screen do a small hit to the opponent, and make him a few blocks of penalty. Destroying immensely grand number of blocks with a single bomb (and making double or sometimes triple combos) the character will do a very big smash to it's opponent. And when penalty blocks are about to fall, it's written on the top of the screen "caution", "warning" or "danger" in function of how many are going to fall, that is very fun.

Finally the computer plays well, but still act like a non-perfect human, making it beatable, so the AI is definitely top-notch. The difficulty is selectable also.

Three gameplay mode are available, arcade mode where you fight each 8 characters the ones after each other in a random order (with the character you want) and you have to fight a boss after all of this is done (you have infinite continues fortunately). Then comes the versus mode, where 2 people can fight against each other on a single GBA, player 1 using the L button and directional pad, while player 2 uses the R, A and B buttons (I haven't tried this, but I don't think it's really comfortable). The Playstation version of course had the ability to have two people fight against each other with two controllers, and I remember this was very fun. The last mode is the Street mode, where you fight for "items" (with fixed player and CPU characters) which allows you to get bonuses, such as different icons of the characters, a sound test room, etc... This is great too.

The characters are cool (some are a bit mysterious), and the sound effects were okay (a bit annoying sometimes), but I loved the sound when a lot of blocks crash at the same time ! Bang, chunk ! Oh, and the music is based on the character the CPU plays (so it's varied), and the soundtrack is not bad. There is one exception, however. Sakura's music is AWESOME !! I remembered it since I played the game on the Playstation some 7 years ago so it was good ! They even made a steamed song out of it, which is available as an item on the street mode (you have to fight Sakura with another character (which is another excuse to listen her song)). Yes, this is a steamed song on the GBA ! The quality is horrible (I guess the song is very compressed or something due to limited cartridge space), but we have yet to find many GBA games playing steamed music. The only thing about that is that you're gonna play in street mode all items for which you have to fight Sakura and make in order to loose, but take a long time in doing so so that you can hear her song again and again. And when you got all Sakura's item, you can just go to the music room or play arcade mode, hoping the computer will chose Sakura as your opponent soon.

The Bad
Not much really, except that once you played it for a certain amount of fights and had enough fun there is no real reason to continue replay this game again and again (except Sakura's music). You can try to get as much items as you want in street mode, some are hard to get. Oh, and I wonder why Ryu were harder to beat than every other characters when played by the CPU. For some reason he always caused me trouble, but when you select Ryu the game is not easier than with any other character, so it's not him who is stronger. He was just annoying sometimes, but that is called challenge.

Eventually I didn't like the fact that the game allows a character to fight again himself. Of course once is a palette swapped of the other to look less ridiculous, but still, this really make no sense, fight against yourself, does it ?

The Bottom Line
Puzzle Fighter II, plain and simple, is the best puzzle game I have every played. It's the perfect game to have countless hours of fun (no matter if you play it on the Playstation, GBA, or maybe another platform).It will get old before long, as it has nothing else than puzzle fights and bonuses to features, but still is a very cool game that anyone should try. By the way, even if there is the number two in the title, this game is not a part of a series, it's a standalone and unique game. It also features unique gameplay, and not trying this game will mean miss a lot, even for those who usually are bored by puzzle games (like myself).

The Good
... and I love it. Having bought it in a clear-out bundle from a store that had it almost literally in a trash can, paying close to nothing for it, my expectations were simple: working. It did, but haven't paid much attention to it (being occupied with Fighters Megamix, Athlete Kings and Sega Rally, until the 2006 World Cup approaching, when I needed something that could be played in 15 minutes without any hassle. And what best than a arcade game with little loading time?

The first impressions most people have when seeing the game aren't the best, after all, it could well be another cheap cash-in at the expense of a well-established franchise in a completely different genre (read: the many average "Nintendo franchise" Pinball), but as I've been mostly away from the SF franchise (having only played SF Alpha lightly on MAME between KoF sessions), I could look at the game merely as it is: a Tetris-influenced game. And a very good one, may I add. The concept is simple: create large gems by creating blocks of the same colour, and then drop a crash gem on them to clear your screen, while, at same time, sending more blocks to your opponents' playfield. If the concept is simple, execution is different, as each character has a different counter pattern, and with time you'l learn to prepare yourself to them, and once they turn into regular gems unleash a powerful combo, which is the way to win this game in style. Of course you can just try to outpace your opponent, but that isn't likely in Arcade (on medium or hard) or in Puzzle mode.

While Arcade is the original mode and the ones most people buy the game for, I've had my fun unlocking stuff such as promotional/development pictures, sound tests, win icons and special characters in Puzzle mode, the best mode for quick 10 minute bursts.

The Bad
Well, Street Puzzle mode is interesting for a home version, but the game is lacking a "score attack" mode. You know, playing all by yourself, trying to make the largest combo possible without having to think if your going to face a barrage of counter gems. The initial learning curve isn't properly steep, it only starts a lot more difficult difficult than most other puzzle games, which might put off players with less patience to learn the best ways to do a giant combo or prepare to attack after a counter.

Longevity is also an issue. If you can't find any opponent nearby, once you're done with Street Puzzle mode the Arcade mode (personally) isn't enough to hold the game on it's own.

The Bottom Line
The Saturn is known for the quality arcade ports, and SPFII is no exception. Great graphics, sound and gameplay, and more than decent enhancements for the home version make this one one of the best titles in the Saturn's library for quick bursts of play.