Dan: My favorite character.

When my friend first introduced me to Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, I honestly didn't know what to think of it. I mean, it was a puzzle game, and to tell you the truth I really don't like Tetris all that much, so I wasn't sure what to think of it. And of course, the "Ultra Super Street Fighter II Turbo Extreme" title had me a little worried, I mean, why do you need so many words in a game title anyway?

Since brevity is the soul of wit, I will be brief: Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (there goes my brevity, oh well) is the best two-player puzzle game ever.

There are three modes of play in the game: Arcade, Puzzle, Master Arcade, and, of course, Versus. In Arcade mode, you select one of the ten characters that you want to play as. From Street Fighter we have Ken, Ryu, Akuma, Sakura, and Chun-Li. From Darkstalkers we have Morrigan, Felicia, Donovan, Hsien-ko, and Devilot. And the King of Fighters, Dan.

Akuma, Devilot, and Dan are all special characters that can only be gained through codes, which are easily located on the web.

Puzzle Fighter follows the basic two-player puzzle pattern; paired gems fall from the top of the screen and stack in columns. By stacking four or more of the same color gems in a square or rectangle pattern, the gems coalesce into larger gems. There are circular gems that also fall, and these are called break gems, which you use to break up the normal gems.

I could go into the strategy of the game, but it's pretty simple, smash as much as you can on your screen, and watch as temporary blocking gems fall on your opponents screen. Depending on which character you choose, different blocks will fall on your opponents screen. Rather than simply watch gems pour down on you from your opponent, you can counterattack by breaking a bunch of gems at the same time.

I played this game so much, that I memorized every pattern for every character, and came up with a strategy against every character. I played this game so much, that my little sister (11, when I got the game) began playing against me, and she became so good, that she could beat my friends regularly and me (we were 17 at the time) every now and then. Entire nights and days were spent within the sweet, deadly embrace of Puzzle Fighter, and trust me, it was moment after moment of pure ecstasy.

THE DAN EFFECT
Dan, the character by which a person can measure their personal worth as a PUZZLE FIGHTER master. Why Dan you might ask? Well, as I've said before, every character in the game has an attack pattern which dictates the color and placement of gems that you drop on your opponent. Dan's attack pattern is interesting, to say the least, it's red, completely and totally red. Translated into gameplay, that means that every time you break gems as Dan, he will drop red gems, and only red gems on your opponent. Imagine this...red gems begin falling onto your opponent, after a short while, they begin to meld together, like some kind of red T-1000 gone berserk. Suddenly, a feeling of doom shadows your soul as a red break gem appears on your opponents scream. In the blink of an eye, the red colossus shatters, raining down death and destruction on your side of the screen, decimating you utterly. To play as Dan, and win, you must truly be a Puzzle Master, and that is why he is my favorite character.