This is what happens when you neglect to follow market trends. Sheer perfection!
So, let's start with the presentation of this game. Super Puzzle Fighter 2 is not a traditional puzzle game or a traditional fighting game, but some form of mutant half-breed of both that is somehow greater than the sum of its parts. Graphically this game isn't that impressive. The graphics are indeed clean, and the colors are very sharp, but the actual artistic style is a bit distracting at first, mainly because of how humorous it all looks. This however fits the theme very well, as we are talking about a game that is some form of hybrid, trying to be two things at once, and there has to be some distortion, and at least it is well done and actually very funny and entertaining.
The gameplay is where you finally start to see both fighting and puzzle gaming join into the monster that is SPF2T. You pick you character from a cast consisting of both Street Fighter and Darkstalkers characters. Each character has "counter pattern" which is your first glimpse at the minimal fighting elements involved. This will be the pattern in which you drop blocks on your opponent, and each one is stategically different, and important to master playing against. The puzzle system is pretty different than you average system. There are 4 different colors or gem, red, yellow, blue, and green. You get you gems in twos, and rather than breaking when you create long lines or stacks they just sit on the screen, or if you create stacks they will form into giant super blocks, and to break them you must use the corresponding breaker sphere, which will randomly appear, much less frequently than regular gems, and then place them on the proper color, breaking all gems touching the breaker or linked to a gem directly touching the breaker. When you break gems, based on how many you broke at one time, with super gems being worth more than the sum of the gems use to create them, you will then drop a certain amount of countdown blocks on your opponent. These blocks will either have the number 3 or 5 on them when they fall, depending on the number of blocks dropped, the gems, or super gems involved, and chains that occured, if any. As placing breakers on blocks of the wrong color will leave them on the screen until they touch a block of the same color allow you to set up devastating chain breaks. Timed blocks will count down every time you place a gem, meaning if you get too many piled up with high timers you may not be able to break antything to save yourself before your screen fills up, loosing you the round. This is where knowledge of your opponent counter pattern comes in, allowing you to set up safeties around this pattern so that when the timers are done and the gems become real you can have breakers set to remove them and thus drop gems on your opponent. Now I know this all seems pretty complicated, and trust me it is at first. Most people I know don't understand the power and potential of super gems or combos at first, but once you get it this game becomes one of the most enjoyable, multiplayer experiences you will ever have.
And that is the main reason for my high score. Most puzzle games are geared to be single player. Good for passing some time alone, but Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo is the only true multiplayer puzzle experience. My friends and I will spend hours trying to beat each other, cursing, yelling, and complaining about everything from luck to cheese, but we will always play that next round so that we can finally get that victory. There are 2 singel player modes, one being your classic arcade-fighter style tournament where you must defeat a certain number of opponents to win, however, this really doesn't unlock anything, and is pretty much a waste of time unless you just want to work on your skills, because trust me, this game is hard. The computer A.I. seems terrrible is you watch it, because it really isn't that great, but generally it plays so fast on the higher difficulty that they can beat you by simply slamming more blocks down than which. The other mode is a challenge mode. Each character has 6 challenges and each one unlocks something different. You know what each challenge will give you, so you can do the ones that unlock alternate costumes and the codes for secret characters first, but really, it is another place to test your skill, as most of the challenges seem to be played at a pretty decent difficulty level, and they all unlock something, which gives you at least some reason to play.
The sound is pretty crazy, the music fits this game like a glove, and all the sound effects and crazy japanese voice acting really adds a style that you don't find in most puzzle games. I mean you may not be able to understand it, but as you play you will still find it enjoyable, as your characters yell out classic attack names and random japanese jibberish.
While this game may not be the greatest puzzle game ever, it provides a unique multiplayer experience that fans of both fighters and puzzle games can enjoy, together none the less. Bridging the Grand Canyon-like gap that has always existed between these to classic gamer arch-types....Well, maybe not, but honestly this game has a style and presentation that comes with a gameplay experience you can't really put down.