Gaming Target - Game Boy: Super Puzzle Fighter II

Written by Tim McGrew on April 22, 2003

Review: It's block smashing action on the go

Nearly six years ago, Sony was kicking back in the lime light with its little grey box and its gross amounts of success. What really gave Sony the edge in the market was its huge library of games that not only dwarfed every other system in number, but also topped the sales charts with variety and versatility with hundreds of unique titles released yearly. Though many titles developed were veritable carbon copies of one another, the Playstation was still the breeding ground for many of the 2D and 3D sequels that we have all come to know and love today on our next generation consoles. One developer benefited greatly from this explosion of talent and poured its creativity into the most abstract of genres branching out into untapped areas that would gain them far more praise from its already loyal fans. That particular company is Capcom.

Given its already huge success with Street Fighter, Capcom started thinking of ways it could use its characters in some type of new arena they had yet to explore. Enter Super Puzzle Fighter II for the Playstation starring several of the illustrious Capcom greats from its Street Fighter Alpha and Darkstalkers fighting game series. Now ported over to the Gameboy Advance, fans of this already established puzzle fighting title will find plenty to love here as it's not only a port of their otherwise insanely cute (more on that later) title, but it's also portable perfect for anyone looking for a quick yet addictive fix on their way to work or even at the waiting room at the doctors office.

Those expecting brand new artwork of their favorite franchise characters will be surprised to see them not only drawn anew, but also depicted as super deformed kid like versions of their former selves. They even come complete with high pitched voices that are sure to make anyone squeal with compliments of their over the top gestures and abilities. It's actually a perfect graphical depiction for a game of this type and long time hardcore fans of Street Fighter along with new fans will find plenty to love here with its style.

Aside from the characters, for those who have been living in a dank cave for the past six years, Super Puzzle Fighter II has a lot going for it. It's basically another one of those block droppers similar to Tetris with two playing windows on each side of the screen accompanied by your cute SD characters in the middle facing off against each other performing their signature moves as you go. How you get these characters to perform these special moves is what makes up the crux of this otherwise incredibly detailed puzzle system.

Although the game is divided up with two separate panels, similar to two player games in Tetris DX, that's just about where the similarities end and the fun begins as this game takes on its own shape as an addictive beast from which there is no escape. Utilizing pairs of colored blocks and explosive spheres, it's the player's job to combine as many of the same colored blocks together as possible before УdetonatingФ them with the same colored sphere and thus sending over an equivalent number of УlockedФ blocks, which become unlocked after a certain number of drops, into your opponent's playing field. After about five drops, the numbered blocks unlock themselves and become colored blocks corresponding to the number previously on them helping or destroying your opponent's plans to destroy you depending on your particular drop pattern.

The drop pattern is what makes this game interesting as each player has one that is totally unique and the type of blocks dropped on your opponent's playing field depends on the number of blocks the player sends over. Those who memorize the drop patterns of their opponents can utilize them in their chain combos and create some rather devastating problems for their opponent by causing the game to shift in balance almost at the drop of a hat. This type of tension is what makes Super Puzzle Fighter II truly unique and completely engrossing as new players can offer degrees of challenge even to the most experienced of opponents provided they understand the basic mechanics of the title.

Given these unique attributes, Puzzle Fighter becomes an incredible two player game as wits and speed alone are your true allies. The game sports a rather unique feature where the game can be played with two players using one GBA unit with one cart although it's not particularly comfortable in the long run. Aside from this, players can also link up two GBA systems with two Puzzle Fighter carts and go at it head to head, but why single link cable support wasn't utilized and explored is odd given the game's simplistic nature.

Speaking of shortcomings, the game has quite a few problems that have run consistent with another Capcom produced port, Super Street Fighter II X Revival. For starters, the game has a nasty bug that freezes the entire GBA unit where soft resetting the system won't even bring the game back and where turning the GBA off and on is the only solution. Plus, with just about every freeze, saved data is lost and since unlocking the two secret characters and other extras depends on the player completing specific matches in the game, it can become quite tiresome and very annoying having to do it almost every time you play. However, the faults do not stop there.

The game is plagued by tons of unexplainable slowdown. The GBA should be able to easily handle this game, but since the programmers did not optimize the code to take advantage of the 2D capabilities of the GBA, there is nary a time where the game runs perfectly smooth. In fact, Puzzle Fighter fans and enthusiasts will find this slowdown to be incredibly annoying and easily noticeable at first glance. Even the main start screen has a bit of slowdown when it initially appears that is just, if nothing else, terribly annoying.

Aside from this absolutely glaring fault that can be summed up into nothing but laziness in this otherwise dirty port, the game is actually host to some impressive features. For instance, the sound is perfect and actually amplifies incredibly well through the tiny GBA speaker. Voices, music, and sound effects are all greatly presented in this particular package and it's amazing to see a GBA game emulate the Playstation's sound capabilities so well. Because the sound is of such high quality, it can only be assumed that it is responsible for the missing single cart support and although it is incredible, probably wasn't worth sacrificing the feature for. It'll impress fans for sure, but it's hardly worth the faults of the overall title.

Players can also select any of a variety of gameplay modes. They can start with arcade mode, basically a straight versus game against the computer. Next it's off to versus mode, where players go against an opponent with the two of you sharing the GBA. Link cable versus mode comes next, where players use 2 systems, 2 carts, and a link cable to battle. Then there is Street Puzzle mode, which is where most secrets are acquired through single match competitions. Finally there is a training mode where you can watch a video of how to play the game. A lot of time will be spent in the Street Puzzle mode since that's where all the secrets are, but players will have to watch out for that crash bug since it happens virtually at random.

Regardless of the faults, there's still plenty to do and love in this title. The number of secrets in the Street Puzzle mode is hard to believe and can only be unlocked by using each character in the game. There are voice samples, sound tests, new characters, and other cute extras that will please fans of the game's presentation and style that are just waiting to be unlocked. Plenty of time will be spent in this mode earning it all dwarfed only by the time spent in versus mode if players know someone who owns the game and another GBA.