Ken, Ryu and the gang are at it again. All the familiar bone-jarring intense battles taking skill, timing, speed and manual dexterity as you punish you opponent with combos. Go head to head in Super Puzzle Fighter II: HD Remix. I don't think they could have come up with a longer title. Now you may be thinking that this isn't the same thing as real a fighting game, but oh nay, nay, I say it is. You fight an opponent head to head. You use strategy and speed to defend from attacks while making your own. You complete combos to deliver the most damage to your opponent. Who cares if this isn't with kicks to the head and fireballs from their hands?

As this game is a more casual puzzle game and not your typical physics latent fighter, you have to give to the graphics a bit. There will be no flashy particle effects or flying bodies. Even though cartoonish compared to the more familiar characters they portray, I really felt like they did an exceptional job of portraying the characters' original style. As this a LIVE game for the 360, it has been reformulated graphically for your HD TV. Again, this is a cartoonish game, so I didn't see much of a need for such distinction, but it looked good.

As this is a casual game, you are not going to get the full symphony assembled for the soundtrack. It does have the poppy electronic beat you would expect. It has a very early 80's feel to it, and you might even find some of it reminiscent of the original Streetfighter II game, though I could not decipher it as an exact match. One thing that I wasn't expecting from the sound was all of the stereo work they did to make the sound come from different speakers, creating a more immersive game feel.

In Super Puzzle Fighter II: HD Remix, you begin just like the original Street Fighter II games as you will first choose the puzzle type you will compete in and the fighter you will use as your avatar. In the Main Menu, you will decide if you wish to take on the single player game or the multiplayer game modes. Or you can take a peek at your competition on the leaderboard as well as your hard-earned achievements. The Single Player Mode allows you to jump into the action against your computer opponents or try the Training mode. No matter what puzzle type, the goal is the same, make your opponents puzzle area fill up to the top. Every combo you complete throws an attack at your opponent. With every attack, a piece or pieces with a counter will fall into their area. This piece will count down every time they move a piece into position and lock it in, until it reaches zero. Once it hits zero, it is just like any other colored block.

No matter whether you choose to go head to head or play single player, you will have to choose which puzzle type to play. None of these puzzle types are anything new to long-time puzzle players. You will see elements of Tetris, Doctor Mario, Columns, and even Chuzzle in all of these games. Every one will basically consist of moving and or rotating crystals from one place or another to group them into a gem. The larger the gem, the better. In order to clear the gem in most of the puzzles, you must touch them with a catalyst piece. This catalyst will be round and flashing so you can't miss it. Every block of a color connected to the catalyst piece when it locks into position will be cleared and your attack will be made. There is also a diamond piece that will clear all of one color from the board. There are four modes to play, and each one will be a variation on the above theme.

Now that you have chosen your game, you will choose your fighter. Do not expect to see all of the characters from the original series. There are some new characters that even I have never seen in the fighting game before. The fighting format in single player is the same. You will take on each opponent, including yourself, leading up to the big boss fight. In multiplayer, choose your characters and take on all comers. May the best man, or woman, or man playing with a female character, or woman vice versa... win.

Super Puzzle Fighter II: HD Remix is a puzzler. If you are used to seeing the patterns, then even the hardest opponents won't be able to touch you. The single player game is going to get you sometimes. Let's face it, the computer cheats. It knows all of the next pieces. And don't give me any of that next level computer A.I. speech about how it can't react to future information. Oh, they know. Secretly they communicate internally with their little catch up code Gremlins and plot your demise. Getting tripped up by the infamous catch up code is one thing, but mostly it is about getting stomped by future MENSA dropouts on LIVE that is the difficult part. After cake walking through the normal settings with little incident, I found that the real world held the most viable challenge. I thought I was good until I got trounced time and again in the real world. I think I will keep my little moral victories of beating the computer to myself.

Each of the puzzle types in Super Puzzle Fighter II: HD Remix have their own unique way to be looked at. Discovering the ones you are good at is purely a trial and error thing. After that, it is all about getting the pieces moved where you want them before your opponent can pile up tons of counter blocks on your side. Each character has an unique set of attack blocks that fall in a specific order on their opponent's side. You can edit these patterns yourself to make it extremely difficult to account for variations in the colors that will fall when you attack them. If I am actually playing someone who can memorize the sequence of color patterns that are falling when attacked, then I say that they deserve to have that ability. Who am I to go throwing a wrench in that kind of memory machine by changing up all of the colors on them? Anyways it can be done. Just go into the Help and Options section of the Main Menu and there you will be able to make it whatever your sadistic little heart desires.

As always, the LIVE price point makes this a good game to pick up - it goes for 800 points, or around $10. The other selling point for me is the ability to play two player locally instead of being forced to only play on LIVE. If you had the points to do it, there is nothing that should turn you away from this game if you were into puzzles and looking to challenge others at them. Just watch out for my Shoryuken.