Capcom - 1996

Well, well, well... Puzzle Fighter. What can I say about Puzzle Fighter? The game is similar to Tetris and Dr. Mario, but also different. It's kind of hard to describe without pictures, but I'll do my best. It's a bluish-grey, um, bluish-grey, uh...

The game is based on blocks and poppers. Each comes in red, green, blue or yellow. Poppers break all adjacent blocks of the same color. As in Tetris, whenever you break blocks, your opponent receives them That's it. That is the theory of puzzle fighting.

In practice, the game gets a little fancier. You see, as the blocks come down, you want to form them into doodies (that's the technical term). Doodies are rectangles. Breaking a doodie sends your opponent more blocks than breaking a line. So the goal is to make a huge doodie and then pop it.

In my very extensive puzzle fighting experience I have seen many styles of play. For your benefit and my entertainment I will enumerate these styles.

1. Mark Method of Losing: Keep building that doodie . . . Don't pop it, yet . . . a little bigger . . . save it . . . save it . . . Damn, you lost.

2. Annie Columns: First, play as Ryu. Then, don't build doodies, build columns. Normally, this doesn't work, but here comes the tricky part. When no one is looking, pop everything. I don't know how, just do it.

3. Sundu vs. Evil X: This one takes a team effort, preferably with two pretty good players. Start out working really hard to build a big doodie. When you both have huge doodies, or chains of doodies, pop them, at the same time. Then watch as they cancel each other and all your hard work is lost.

Finally, as in most Street Fighters, there are some secret characters. Akuma and Dan (Street Fighter), and Devilot (Cyberbots), are unlockable in Street Puzzle mode. Akuma and Dan have their Street Fighter weaknesses of low damage and suck, respectively. Devilot is basically Akuma. You can also play as Anita, Donovan's ward, or Lin-Lin, the paper half of Hsien-ko.

What I liked: Oh, the simplicity! Put the colors together and then break them. Piece of cake. Anyone can play. However, despite the short learning curve, it allows plenty of room for improvement. A first time player probably wont gump their way to victory in this game. Also, Street Puzzle mode adds a lot to the single player value.

What I disliked: The music. It was terrible. At first it seems fitting, but once you get hooked on the game, you hate the music. I have found that good, fast techno (Serial Experiments LAIN: Cyberia mix) can really heighten the tension. Single player kind of stinks, too. On any harder matches, the computer will whomp you for about 20 minutes and then let you win.

What to expect: The most addictive puzzle game ever: as simple to learn as Dr. Mario and more addictive than Tetris.

What not to expect: Instant victory. While you can get into the game easily, its takes some time to get really good.

What sets it apart from the genre: Super-deformed Street Fighter and Darkstalker characters "fighting" between the puzzle screens.

Ratings on:

Controls: 10 - Three direction, two buttons, no complaints.

Graphics: 5 - Its a puzzle game, what do you want?

Sound: 3 - Bad music but the voices are pretty funny.

Style: 5 - I can't justify this. It uses no new elements (puzzle games have done colored blocks to death) but it is so much better than all the others.

1st hour: 7 - Playing 2-player, we are all learning the ropes.

5th hour: 8 - Still playing 2-player, same people, same sitting, I just got a bed sore.

1st week: 9 - Everyone had to go visit their parents, so I jumped into Street Puzzle mode. I like the secrets (Dan!).

1st month: 9 - I can't get these kids out of the house, I think my parents are signing adoption papers.

1st year: 10 - Whenever someone new comes over, the addiction comes back.

#1 thing I hate about this game: ANITA! No love for her.

Sundu loves Capcom.