Despite the long name, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is the best competitive puzzle game on Xbox Live Arcade.
Each character in Puzzle Fighter HD has their advantages and weaknesses in terms of dealing damage by chains or exploding big sets of gems and counter gems, which make this game have some sort of depth. For example, Dan's counter gem is one color and it is the worst counter gem in the game. For those who have not played Puzzle Fighter yet, gems of different colors fall into screen and place them like Tetris. Unlike Tetris however, a square or rectangle of the same color gem is an actual square or rectangle and deal big damage when blown up by bomb gems. These bomb gems are basically the method of attack in this game as the minimum of one gem of the same color can be blown up or a whole set of them connected together. Eventually, you can set up chain combos by these bomb gems depending on gem placement which also deal big damage. As you use bomb gems, counter gems get instantly launched to your opponent's screen after a gem gets placed. Occasionally, there will be a diamond which clears the screen of a whole color of choice and also deals big damage if used right. The diamond can be a saving grace if you are near death, in which the whole screen gets filled up of gems that are not blown up (the fourth one). The whole gameplay aspect of Puzzle Fighter HD is fast and chaotic as life and death in this game can happen in mere seconds. That part alone makes the game addicting in many ways as many scenarios of gem placements happen depending on your play style.
The arcade mode in Puzzle Fighter HD is the single-player meat of the game even though there is a training mode if you are new to the game. There are four modes of single-player which are X', the new rebalanced mode and why this HD Remix is made, X, the original game at its original glory, Y and Z, which are different variations of the whole Puzzle Fighter mode. These different variations are not really special and you will spend more time playing the X and X' modes especially online. Speaking of online, the multiplayer in this game is where it is at with player match set to four players max and ranked matches for two players. The player match is basically the Quarter Match feature of Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting on Xbox Live Arcade with two players duking it out while two other players wait their turn watching the action unfold. The online performance is pretty solid with little to no lag at all in most matches, but you will run into laggy matches at some point depending on connection settings. There are also local options for multiplayer as well if you do not feel liking playing anybody online. The major flaw online for this game is the voice chat as you have to hold the triggers to talk while facing your opponent. It ends up as a distraction to the whole experience and you will likely hear no one on their headset playing online.
Another major theme of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo getting the HD Remix treatment is the graphics as everything except the characters themselves during actual gameplay got the HD treatment. All of the character art designs got a HD makeover as well as the stage backgrounds. The gem pieces and explosions also got the HD treatment as different sound effects ranging water dripping or glass shattering occur while blowing up gems. The characters during the fights remain unchanged and ends up as a total distraction from the whole HD experience being unbalanced graphically. Despite that distraction, the game still looks great in HD and modernized for this generation.
Most of the sounds in this HD Remix remain unchanged. The music in this game are just rearranged versions of the characters' classic tunes and it sounds good. The menu music is surprisingly good and not as annoying as you think. The characters' voices remain the same and true to their personality like Ken being all cocky and Dan being weird. The sound effects got the HD facelift with the explosions as if a bomb was actually exploding in a movie instead of the old-school glass shattering in the original game. Overall, the sound remains accurate to the original game and fits the whole cutesy theme.
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is the best puzzle game out on any downloadable service. On the 360 version, it is recommended to play the game with the left stick instead the d-pad since the d-pad is not as great compared to the Sixaxis. The achievements for this game are a mix of easy and hard ranging from winning 20 online ranked matches, beating the game as Dan on Hard or Expert, exploding a 25 size power gem, or nailing five or seven chain combos. Skilled players can get all 200 achievement points in less than three hours. If you are looking for a puzzle game with lots of addiction and competition, then Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is highly recommended.