Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, released in Japan as Super Puzzle Fighter II X (スーパーパズルファイターIIX Sūpā Pazuru Faitā Tsū Ekkusu?), is a puzzle game first released in the spring of 1996 by Capcom on the CPS II arcade system. Despite the name, the game is not a sequel to a previous game; the title is a parody of Super Street Fighter II Turbo (or Super Street Fighter II X in Japan). The game features music and interface elements spoofing the Street Fighter Alpha 2 (1996) and Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge (1995). A high definition version titled Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix was released in August 2007 on the Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network store. The game was also converted for the PC on CDROM Win95 by late Virgin Interactive. A mobile sequel, Puzzle Fighter, was released in November 2017.
Summary[]
- "Popular Capcom characters duke it out in a puzzle crossover for the ages! Ever wanted to pit Ryu from Street Fighter Alpha 2 against Morrigan from Darkstalkers? Well, now you can! With simple rules and a Counter Gem system that always leaves the door open to reversals of fortune, the flow of battle is far more strategic than it might seem. It's beautiful and richly animated graphics only add to an exhilarating fighting experience you won't want to miss!"
- —Game Center description in Street Fighter 6
Gameplay[]
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo is a puzzle game which is inspired by the Capcom arcade game Pnickies and Sega's arcade game Baku Baku Animal. As in that game, the player controls pairs of blocks ("gems" in game parlance) that drop into a pit-like playfield (twelve blocks tall by six blocks wide, with the fourth column from the left being thirteen blocks high). In Super Puzzle Fighter, however, gems can only be eliminated by coming into contact with a Crash Gem of the same color, which eliminates all adjacent gems of that color, setting up the potential for huge chain reactions.
As gems are eliminated, "garbage blocks" called Counter Gems will drop into the opponent's playfield; these will eventually become normal gems, but only after they count down to zero (most Counter Gems start at "5" and are reduced by one each time a new pair of gems is dropped on that board), and until that time they cannot be eliminated by normal means. The only way to eliminate Counter Gems before they become normal gems is to place a Crash Gem of that color nearby so it eliminates at least one normal gem. If this is done, all Counter Gems immediately adjacent to the Crash Gem will be taken out as well.
Additionally, gems of the same color that form squares or rectangles (of at least two blocks tall and wide) in the pit become a giant Power Gem of that size and color; eliminating these as part of a combo increases the number of Counter Gems that would otherwise normally appear on the opponent's board. The only other type of piece to appear is a diamond, which eliminates all the gems—normal, Power, Counter, and Crash alike—of whichever color gem it lands on (this, too, will cause Counter Gems to appear on the opponent's board; however, it will always be a smaller number than if the same number of gems had been eliminated as part of a normal chain reaction). The diamond piece appears every 25 pieces.
During the game, super deformed versions of various characters from Capcom's two main fighting game series (Street Fighter and Darkstalkers), will act out a comical battle based on how the game is going. Every time one player sends Counter Gems to his or her opponent, his or her character will perform a typical fighting-game action, anything from a taunt to a special move. The more Counter Gems the player sends over, the "bigger" the move the character will perform. These animations, however, are purely cosmetic and have no actual bearing on the gameplay.
The Windows 95 port features a new original mode. In this mode, the "Super Combo Gauge (Crash Gauge)" has been added as a new system, and up to 3 gauges are stocked each time a gem is dropped, and when the rotation button is pressed at the same time, this gauge is consumed at any time. You can also now turn a falling normal gem into a crash gem. This system reduces the element of luck and makes it more strategic. In addition, it is equipped with a "count speed" that allows you to add a time lag to the advance of the counter gem number meter, and a "count number" setting that allows you to change the initial value of the counter gem.
The game continues until one player's field reaches the top of its fourth column (which is where all new gems first appear). That player is the loser.
HD Remix[]
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is a downloadable remake of the original game released on August 29th, 2007 for Live Arcade and August 30th, 2007 for PlayStation Network. The game featured full HD graphics revitalization, including new gem models and animations, redrawn character portraits and backgrounds, and HD-filtered original sprites. It also features 4-player local and online multiplayer, spectator mode and leaderboards.
HD Remix includes the three gameplay modes included in the Dreamcast version, plus an exclusive mode:
- X' Mode - Also referred to as "X Dash" Mode, this is an all new arcade mode for HD Remix that contains rebalances for competitive play.
- X Mode - The original arcade version of the game.
- Y Mode - Gems break as soon as three or more are aligned in a row, similarly to Sega's Columns.
- Z Mode - Lines of gems rise up from the bottom of the screen and the player controls a 2x2 square cursor that he uses to rotate pieces on the game board, similarly to Nintendo's Tetris Attack.
Characters[]
As noted above, all of the playable characters in Super Puzzle Fighter (with one exception) are borrowed from Capcom's two major fighting game series, Street Fighter and Darkstalkers. The super deformed take on these characters gave the game a unique, light-hearted feel that served as a deserved break from the rough and edgy fighting games that were prevalent at the time of Super Puzzle Fighter's initial release. A fighting game using these character sprites called Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix (Pocket Fighter in Japan) was released in 1997. Akuma is the game boss and Devilot is an unplayable secret character controlled by CPU that rarely challenges the player. Akuma, Dan and Devilot are all unlockable characters in the console version.
Street Fighter characters[]
| Sprite | Name | Info | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Ryu | A fighter from Japan, Ryu was the winner of Bison's tournament. He claims he is the best of the best. He is also the enemy of Akuma, due to his "secret" power. | Street Fighter |
|
Ken | Ryu's best friend and greatest rival, Ken Masters is a rich playboy who has a wife and a kid. | Street Fighter |
|
Chun-Li | An officer at Interpol, she lost her father after the evil M. Bison killed him. | Street Fighter II |
|
Sakura | Sakura is Dan's pupil and considers Ryu her idol. She constantly searches and strives to be like him. | Street Fighter Alpha 2 |
Darkstalkers characters[]
| Sprite | Name | Info | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Morrigan | Morrigan is a succubus who lives for fun and excitement. | Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors |
|
Donovan | Donovan is a vampire hunter and an enemy to Morrigan. | Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge |
|
Hsien-Ko
(Lei-Lei in Japan) |
Hsien-Ko is a vampire huntress. She was once an enemy to Morrigan, but eventually became friends with her. | Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge |
|
Felicia | A cat-human hybrid, Felicia was once a nun and helped kids. She is also a performer. | Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors |
Hidden characters[]
| Sprite | Name | Info | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Akuma | Akuma is the arch enemy and rival of Ryu and Ken. He believes he is the mightiest warrior alive and trains day and night to prove he is the world's best. | Super Street Fighter II Turbo |
|
Dan | Dan is the self-proclaimed teacher of Sakura. His father was killed by a young Sagat, who he defeated and avenged, not knowing Sagat allowed him to win for that precise reason. | Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams |
|
Devilot | A major Cyberbots character. A tyrannical princess assisated by two lackies named Xavier & Jigokū Daishi. She traveled back in time from the future of 2099 to challenge the strongest fighter besides Akuma. She appears at random to challenge the player, and she can be obtained on consoles by holding the Start button with a new counter gem pattern. | Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness |
 |
Mei-Ling | Hsien-Ko's twin, who is actually the talisman on her hat, but in human form. In the flesh, Mei-Ling only makes an appearance in the post-credit outro cutscene, and her talisman-form is exclusively playable in the PlayStation & Saturn ports via hidden roster code. | Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge |
 |
Anita |
Donovan's little friend who accompanies him everywhere. |
Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge |
 |
Morrigan's Bat |
The bat that accompanies Morrigan in battle. |
Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge |
Development[]
When development on Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge, Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness and Street Fighter Alpha 2 was completed, development began on Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. On developing the characters and backgrounds in the game, the artists used their appearances from their respective games as reference to draw the super-deformed versions.[citation needed]
The Playstation, Sega Saturn, Game Boy Advance, and Dreamcast versions of the game feature a new challenge mode called "Street Puzzle", in which the player must defeat specific characters to unlock additional content, such as alternate character palletes, win icons, and more.
The game's music is scored by Tatsuro Suzuki, as well as Isao Abe, Yuko Takehara, Syun Nishigaki, Setsuo Yamamoto, and Takayuki Iwai. The game consists of special arranged versions and mixes of music themes from the represented games, as well as some original music. The soundtrack album for the game was released on January, 22 1997 in Japan only, which also includes the soundtrack for Quiz Nanairo Dreams.[citation needed]
Trivia[]
- If the controller is left without entering any command in the title screen, after a while an animated "tutorial" sequence will be shown, in which Dan appears instructing the players about how the rules for the game works. In the Game Boy Advance version, it can be selected anytime on the main menu if the player chooses to see it. This tutorial was replaced by a 4-page tutorial in Options in the HD Remix version.
- The official abbreviation is "Spuzzle", but it is also called "Spuzzle X", or "Puzzle Fighter".
- In the middle and ending demos in the middle of the stage, one of several small intermissions, "SHOW TIME" ("INTERMISSION" in Japan) was played.
- In the arcade version of the game, Dan's stage itself was the same as Ken's (with Ken's tiles). On some home console versions of the game such as the PSP, Dreamcast and HD Remix versions, the stage is re-colored, and the background tiles are Dan's exclusive ones used in Gem Fighter.
- In Morrigan's ending in Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, she and Ryu will both face each other, referencing this game, with it's sprites such as the interface and gems being re-used. The only exception is that both characters use their Clash of Super Heroes sprites instead of their SD designs.
- Additionally, Devilotte's voice in Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes is actually come from this game.
- The BGM of this game is used as it is in some modes of the Playstation 2 Alpha Anthology version of Pocket Fighter as an additional element, and all songs of the arcade version and Playstation and Sega Saturn versions are also used for the sound test (including Sakura's song).
- In Super Street Fighter IV OVA, Chun-Li is seen at one point playing Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo.
- A medal game version of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo was released later after the game's release in Japan-only as Super Medal Fighters, as it re-uses the character sprites and fighter roster from this game.
See also[]
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
Artwork[]
