Game:

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (1996)

Category:

Guide

Duration: 15:17

2,252 views

9

So anyway, obviously I don't expect it to steal the show in any regard... but this is the most exciting extra little part of the free online play weekend for me. I just hope that I was trying to play at a really weird hour with not many people trying to get into some games, or else there might be some trouble if I want to play some more later.

I don't know what was most surprising, the fact that I couldn't find anyone in the early moments of trying (not really surprising given the genre and the platform), that I eventually DID find someone, or that I found someone just as I was about to cut the recording and give up. My money's on that last one, personally... how weird, but it just shows that this was meant to be!

Oh, and I guess the most surprising detail after all those considerations is that I found someone who wasn't totally out of my league. I know Meteos Wars doesn't get much attention and is basically a ghost town if you seek a random opponent, but I have a feeling that this game probably has a slightly larger following of people who would crush me into dust faster than you can say Magical Drop.

Anyway, I look forward to playing this some more in the future and adding it to my general repertoire of ongoing action-puzzle madness. If push comes to shove, I know at least one person I can bug on special occasions to play with me and might stand a chance of wrangling up some local players now and then besides.

---

Match #1
Felicia (TrakStarBandito) vs. Hsien-ko (YuuGiJoou)

I didn't actually think much of it while I was fumbling around with the character select screen, but the attention on my side of the field seems to have been overly monopolized by the Street Fighter combatants instead... I didn't mean anything by it, honest! Don't stalk me in the dark, Darkstalkers, I'm sorry!

I conferred with my guide to all things Capcom fighting... and... uh... I guess Puzzle Fighter, but we were unable to come up with how you might get a random character selection. There's an extreme dearth of information out there on something like that. Heck, there's barely so much as a footnote here or there about how to get to the secret off-menu characters and even less of that is actually accurate to this (or any?) version, I think.

Oh, and while I have to say that Felicia in her normal state is just a tad off-puttingly... how shall I put this delicately... uh... a certain kind of "wrong" attention-grabbing? Well, anyway, Chibi-Felicia is just adorable. Nothing's actually different about her even down to her battle-ready stance, they just let the natural chibi effects do the rest.

Chibified Hsien-ko's not bad either with all that idle fidgeting and the extra attention to her rosy cheeks. Hey, wait... this is way too late to ask something like this, but how does a jiangshi actually get any blood flowing to her face in order to achieve that effect?

Hey, and for that matter, I'm not keeping a complete watch over her, but it does look as if the sisters are separated for this little diversion...does that mean Lei-Lei is doing the thinking for a change and Lin-Lin is content to simply watch? (Oh, and don't think she hasn't escaped my notice... you can't really "chibify" a piece of ward paper, but she also feels a little more expressive somehow with the cutesy emphasis.)

---

Match #2
Chun-Li (TrakStarBandito) vs. Akuma (YuuGiJoou)

Now, I'm not sure if I've gone and done a terrible and unforgivable thing... I know Akuma's dark history as something of a deliberately overpowered character who's totally illegal for fair play usage in older Street Fighter games... but what about Puzzle Fighter? His drop pattern seems particularly nasty on paper, but he also apparently takes extra "damage" from his opponents, too, rather like how they've seen fit to direct his more recent appearances in fighting games in an attempt to keep him under proper rein.

For that matter, I think I read that Chun-Li actually gets a "damage" boost and sends extra attack gems to her hapless adversary... probably also because of her attack pattern, which on paper seems more conducive to granting lucrative clear potential when the gems unlock. It's not quite to Dan's level of self-destructiveness, but it could be a factor in her own theoretical undoing, I'd suppose.

So, to those out there who know, do I have either of these character-specific traits figured rightly, and if so... do they stack? I have next to no eye for actually calculating the strength of an attack until it lists itself on the other field's upper border, and even then I'm just kinda taking its word for it. (I'm having too much fun grouping together colorful shapes and watching them explode in a flashy display, obviously!)

Other Statistics