Super Puzzle Fighter II: Network Battle

Along with a couple other mobile games, Capcom is working on a port of Super Puzzle Fighter II. For those unfamiliar, Super Puzzle Fighter II is a Tetris-like puzzle game that uses gems instead of blocks.

The point is to build up big gems by orienting smaller ones of the same color into square blocks. When at least a 2x2 square is made, the gems merge into a bigger gem. Gems can only be cleared when a round glowing gem of the same color touches it. At that point all gems of that color that are touching pop, and your opponent gets a bunch of gems dumped on them. So basically you’re building trails and huge gems of the same color, then just waiting for that glowing gem to unleash the fury.

The main focus of Puzzle Fighter on the cell phone is its multiplayer feature. Anyone in the area with that game can receive messages and invites from you. You can even send multiple challenges out if you’re somewhat impatient. If there are no human players around, there are always bots to challenge.

You can also create your own name to use when playing multiplayer, as well as pick from four Street Fighter characters and four Dark Stalkers characters to represent you.

The way a multiplayer game works is by utilizing timed sessions. Both players play at the same time, and the game takes note of when big combos are made and how well each player is doing. The session ends and you can see your score as well as your opponent’s, and then the next session begins. In this session, the game remembers at what time each player made combos, so now you’ll begin receiving gems from your opponent’s combos and such.  Each session picks up right where the last left off, and it isn’t a game over if you lose. The game just counts a loss as a KO and you have a clear screen to work with.

Super Puzzle Fighter II is a great puzzle game, and it translated perfectly to a cell phone game. The way multiplayer works is a pretty creative way to solve the problems of lag and dropped connections. Super Puzzle Fighter II should be available this June.

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