As a general rule, most puzzle games are typically a solitary affair.  Sure, a lot of puzzlers throw in a multiplayer mode to appease the masses, but too often the versus modes ends up as more of an afterthought.  Capcom’s classic puzzler, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (whew, that’s a long title) definitely eschews that standard by presenting an addictive, super fast-paced puzzle game that has versus play at its heart.  Super Puzzle Fighter’s newest home on the Xbox Live Arcade (and Playstation Network) should more than delight fans of the classic and new wannabe puzzle fighters.

Drop’n Bombs… er, Gems!

Even though Super Puzzle Fighter has a laser-like focus on versus play, it otherwise doesn’t stray from some of the more “standard” features of its puzzler brethren.
That’s to say: Super Puzzle Fighter has you manipulating colored gems as they fall into your playfield.  Gems fall in pairs of every four-color combination possible which you rotate to form power gems by grouping same color gems in large squares or rectangles of at least four gems.    The object is to prevent your own stack of gems from reaching the top of the playfield by using “crash gems” to destroy adjacent like-colored gems.  Sounds simple right?  Sure.  Expect that your goal isn’t just to keep your gem tower from growing too high but to also make your opponent’s gem tower loom skyward.  And how does one does one fuel the growth of your opponents tower of gems?  Every time you use a crash gem to destroy gems on your playfield, you send counter gems to your opponent.  The more gems you destroy at once, the more “hurt” you put on your opponent.

Super Puzzle Fighter has a surprising amount of strategy hidden behind its tongue-in-cheek Street Fighter II parody.  At a glance, Super Puzzle Fighter looks like it will play like just another Columns clone, but once you get your hands on it, it doesn’t take long to realize the complexity in its fast paced action.

Comes With Free Enrollment to “Gem Addicts Anonymous”

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix isn’t the kind of puzzle game you’ll curl up with to relax for the night, but it IS the game you’ll want to bust out with some friends.  And when there’s nobody around to play with, there’s always Xbox Live to save the day.  Puzzle fans, this one’s a no brainer, go convert some cash into magical MS points (you’ll need 800 points) and get to downloading!