Street Fighter II

The Good
How many of you were as enthralled as I was the first time EGM ran an early picture of Guile in Blanka's stage with an article about this "16 Meg monster" hitting the SNES in the future? Did you grab for an earlier issue and try to compare it to the arcade?

Reigning around half a decade over a span of 5 versions, Street Fighter II was the biggest thing to hit the arcades since Pac Man. With huge sprites, detailed animation, and the pseudo-3D effect of layered backgrounds coupled with warping floor sprites, a home version seemed like a pipe dream to many fans, including myself. Needless to say, the surprise screenshot and confirmation of a home conversion were enough to send an obsessed fan into shock.

Weighing in at a hefty 16 Megs (Excluding Neo-Geo, it was the biggest home game to date. Super Street Fighter II would double that a few years later.), Street Fighter II brought the phenomenon home.

The visuals took only a small hit, but you'd be hard pressed to notice. The characters are big, colorful, and well animated. The vast majority of animations made it in (we'll get to the omissions later). Almost every detail in the backgrounds were retained as well.

The sound is wonderful, though not everything is here (again, later). Everyone shouts their little saying for their special moves, though it seems that Capcom slipped a little something extra in. Unlike the arcade version, the speed and pitch at which they spout their signature lines (such as "Hadouken!" and "Sonic Boom!"), is different based on which strength of attack button is used. Use jab for a fireball, and "Hadouken" is said slower and deeper. Use fierce, and it's said at normal speed. Needless to say, a savvy player can learn to judge when they should jump in to attack and when they should block, leaving a little less room to be caught in the face with a surprise fast fireball. This home version of Street Fighter II is also the bassiest. When a fierce punch connects and the bass is cranked, you're going to know it. It really added to the experience.

The music turned out very well on the SNES. In some cases, I actually prefer the way it was arranged for the SNES. No complaints here.

The gameplay is where this game shines. I can't think of a single combo from the arcade that won't work here.

The Bad
So, missing animation frames. There's not too much to complain about. Ken and Ryu's jumping straight-up Short was altered (same type of kick as jumping straight-up Medium kick), but I can't remember any other moves that may have been changed due to space considerations. One of Zangief's win poses took a hit. Like I said, not much that you're going to notice, outside of a few moves and some altered ending sprites (corrected to match the arcade in later versions, like Turbo and Super).

In sounds, the glaring ommission is "You Win!" You see it on screen, but you don't hear it. We loved mimicing the announcer, so that was kind of a drag.

One odd thing about the gameplay, you could counter Guile's flash kick with Ken and Ryu's jumping short (flying knee). This is the only version I have ever seen this possible in. I got used to using it, which would backfire on me at the arcades.

The Bottom Line
I bought this at the same time as my SNES. The SNES was $99.95, Street Fighter II was $81. Sounds like alot, but this game was an investment. This wasn't something you played through and set aside. Street Fighter II went to my friends' houses, where we'd play all night and complain about our thumb hurting the next day. It turned a room full of kids hanging out into an arcade competition. Every few minutes, you'd hear "NEXT!" "NOOOOOOOOOO!" and "I got winner!" Street Fighter II wasn't a game. It was a pasttime.

The Good
Street Fighter II made history. Released for the Arcades in 1991, it turned the heads of players all over the world. They would forget TMNT, Final Fight and any other hits of the past to concentrate the attention in the most sophisticated game ever. All other fighting games before this one (including the first version of Street Fighter) were either primary or action-like (such as Double Dragon or Final Fight).

The revolutionary Street Fighter II brought unique characters, detailed graphics, big sprites, elaborated moves, smooth animation and involving sound. Then somebody would inevitably do the question: is it possible to do a game conversion? To which console?

Well, the next year the game was released exclusively for Super NES. Would be enough to say that this sole release rocketed the console sales? Or that Super NES only became a real challenge for Sega Genesis (in terms of sales numbers) because of this game? Or that Sega would invest millions of dollars in game production just to make its 16-bit console attractive to the costumer after the development of Street Fighter for its rival?

I'm not exaggerating. Nobody would ever imagine such a good Arcade translation could be done. Street Fighter II for SNES was more than a faithful conversion: it was nearly the same as the Arcade.

Technically, the game was perfect. Excellent in every aspect. Grand. It was the first 16-bit game to consume 16 Megabits of memory (not considering the Neo Geo ones), what guaranteed its superb quality. No other SNES or Genesis game could dare to compete to this one.

The quality of the graphics had no precedent. The sprites were not only big, but beautifully designed and carefully animated. Even the clothes of the characters followed the move of the wind (for a 1992 game, it was almost a miracle). The backgrounds were rich and animated, and they moved following the characters.

The sound quality was also awesome. Every stage had its own music, which became more intense with the victory of one of the players. The sounds contributed to a realistic impression of the game, as it was common to hear the voices of the characters.

Outrageous graphics and sound, but what about gameplay? Well, that's the best part! No other game had ever made such use of Super NES 6-button gamepad. The Arcade Street Fighter II used 6 buttons (3 for punches and 3 for kicks, of different intensities) and so did the SNES version. The combination of buttons generated new and special moves. The control, although easy, was complex and brought an unprecedent variety of moves to a game. And there were 8 characters available, each behaving differently. They were all balanced: there was no character much better than the other, it would depend on the player's preferences.

What else? The game was not too difficult and not too easy. There were 10 levels of difficulty so the player could choose the most adequate.

The Bad
The game is perfect in almost every aspect and has no major problems. Just some minor ones.

First, Capcom could have included a cheat to allow players control the four bosses.Everyone wanted to control the bosses as Street Fighter II Champion Edition hit the Arcade. But there was no option or cheat for that.

The action could have been a bit faster. There is some slowdown. This is a problem with the Super NES slow processor and not with the game itself. But it irritates sometimes.

Also, the bonus stages were not the same. Capcom substituted the cool "barrel" bonus stage for the somewhat boring "bricks" bonus stage. It does not spoil the game, but the original bonus stage could have been kept.

It can also be said that the Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not very, uhu, intelligent. But so was the Arcade. Indeed, Street Fighter II had a good AI, but the gamers could sometimes predict the opponent's move. And that would make it easy to win the fights.

The Bottom Line
TRUE CLASSIC. If this game is not perfect, I don't know what could be.

The Good
It is part of the history of all of us, brings a lot of memories, i felt in love with SF2 in the arcade and im still with that conversion, really great, big sprites, nice digitalized voices, beautiful and colorful backgrounds and one of the best points: the music, every song captured perfectly the personality of each character.

Each character has his story and his reason to end with M.Bison, there are a lot of feelings in there: self-acomplishment, vengeance, showing to the world how cool you are...

The Bad
I always missed playing with the four bosses and some attacks maybe were too powerful and you could kill your enemy with only two or three of these.

The Bottom Line
One of the best games in videogaming history. Select your character and prepare to become a true World Warrior!

The Good
I'm glad I could buy Capcom's Street Fighter II for my DOS system, if this was still 1992. The graphics are dead-on, and the game doesn't eat too much disk space, but . . .

The Bad
. . . the slowest game of 1992, I'd say. Let's see . . . the Super NES is using the same CPU as an Apple II GS, except it's running at 3.75 MHz or so, has very little RAM (kilobits, mind you), and the game is on a 2 MB cart with extreme compression . . . the average 1992 PC is running a 386 or 486 CPU, either which is 32-bit, and the slowest clock speed is at around, if memory serves me right, I think between 10 and 33 MHz . . . yet the game runs slow. Then the digitized sounds have either a "white noise" or is "tiny", depending on if the card is a SoundBlaster 2.0 or 16. Also, no GravisPad support, and the joypad was at least one year old, no more than two, but was the new joypad standard for PC, Mac, and CD-i. To top it off, keyboard is impossible, and the two buttons used on any joystick or joypad relys on you pressing the button longer to select which "arcade" button is chosen for the moves. This leaves you with, well, a terrible experience topped with the bad sounds.

The Bottom Line
If you see a box at CompUSA or Best Buy that reads "Street Fighter Series" for PC CD-ROM, and it's only like $1.99, avoid it like the plague, a world war, intergalactic invasion and the Wrath of God all rolled into one. This game IS THAT BAD!

The Good
I guess there's no need to note yet again the immense impact that Street Fighter 2 had on the videogame world, and back in it's day, being able to play it at home was like owning a frigging Ferrari for any kid. It was for that reason that when the much delayed PC port finally came out I, along with hundreds of Street Fighter fans around the world, rushed out to get a copy. Of course, if I had only known that US Gold had brutally raped Capcom's masterpiece into a whimpering mess of a game, then there's a good chance that today I would be a decent, productive member of society. Instead this thing traumatized me into what I am today. US Gold, I blame you!!!

I guess however, since this is the "good" part, that I should note that the entire cast is there, and so are their moves, taunts, stages, etc...

The Bad
It's hard to believe how bad the DOS port of SF2 is, yet this is the kind of thing that gave PCs a bad reputation as far as action games were concerned. The graphics are horribly grainy and washed out, and to top that off there are so many missing frames you'd swear the animations play at 4fps or so, not to mention altogether missing ones like the breaking barrels, crowds, etc. The sound department is equally botched, with wimpy and noisy translations of the original music tunes and the SFX and voices are so garbled as to be almost unrecognizable (HARr-OOOURGH-KRHRHEN!!) but the worse hit is taken by the gameplay.

What was once a fast and engaging action masterpiece is now rendered a slow and dull monstruosity were characters slug around the screen trying to execute their moves without crashing your computer. Just jump towards your opponent and you'll think you are playing Virtua Fighter, as your character slowly flooooooats from one point to the other. The AI sure as hell didn't seem to be such a pushover in the arcades, and attempting to play a two-player vs match is a thing better left for the daredevil types out there willing to somehow live with the ensuing embarrassment for the rest of their lives.

But you want to know what is the worst thing? SNES owners had access to what's today a legendary port with near perfectly translated graphics, sounds and gameplay while we tried to make do with the shitty version US Gold handed us. AARGHHHHH!!!!!!

The Bottom Line
Probably the worst port in the history of the universe on account of taking one of the coolest games ever at it's peak of popularity and turning it into digital dog excrement. If you think the Spider-Man 2 Movie game is an example of catastrophic porting then give this bad boy a chance and you'll see what catastrophic really means. Anything that can turn Ryu into a poorly animated, slow and wimpy mess is just plain evil dude.

The Good
Street Fighter II was the first and perhaps greatest fighting game of the 1990s. We all had fun playing Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, and maybe even Clay Fighter, but Street Fighter II was pretty much the be-all and end-all of competitive gaming for many years after its release.

There's not much to say about this game that most gamers of the 23-32 age bracket doesn't already know. The characters are memorable and beautifully drawn, the music is lively, and the gameplay itself couldn't really be much better for the era it was produced in. Arguably improved upon by Street Fighter Alpha III, the combo system of Street Fighter II was rudimentary but functional. There's not a lot of showboating that can be done, and that's a good thing if you're not the showboating type of player.

Your basic fights are a mix of throwing fireballs, coming down from a jump with a solid kick, a little aerial combat, the occasional ground throw, and an even rarer aerial throw. No move took off more than the one-third damage of Zangief's Spinning Pile Driver, and that was virtually-impossible to execute for anyone other than the best players.

Single-player mode is satisfying, challenging, and features four memorable bosses: the effeminate Spaniard Vega, Mike-Tyson clone Balrog, 7-foot Muay Thai expert Sagat, and the reprehensible supervillain M. Bison.

The Bad
About the only thing to dislike about Street Fighter II is getting your ass handed to you by a friend. It was such a complete game, and the fighters were so well-balanced, that there was really no excuse for losing.

Another thing I didn't like was that when I visited the United Kingdom back in the early nineties, there were no arcade versions of it to be found. It's tough being 13 years old, stuck on a decrepit island with no SF2 to be found, especially when you're hooked on it from playing it every day for the past six months.

The Bottom Line
This is my second-favorite fighting game of all time, after the flashier and sexier Marvel versus Capcom 2. It is certainly worth a download for ZSNES (a Super Nintendo emulator) if you haven't played it since the nineties.

The Good
I first played the game over ten years ago now but I still enjoy it just as much now. The whole challenge and concept of the game is great, so are all the characters, as are the graphics, and stage music, especially Ken's and Ryu's, very memorable tunes. Playing the game is a very enjoyable experience, to this day.Its my favourite fighting game and one of my favourite video games of all time

The Bad
The AI of the game would irritate me sometimes, when facing Ryu, at times, he would just persist in doing his fireball repeatly, making it hard to counter the move, and irritating and annoying at the same time.

The Bottom Line
The best there was, the best there is, the best there ever will be..

The Good
The graphics are pretty good for the Super Nintendo, I especially like the very detailed backgrounds that have actual animations. The fighters look pretty good as well and you can clearly who and what they are (except for Blanka, I have no idea what he is supposed to be).

The game requires a certain amount of strategy and you have to understand all the different moves the characters can perform. I know so because I played it and I sucked horribly. I am new to the Super Nintendo, so my first reaction was to tap random buttons like a monkey in a space simulator. Randomly tapping buttons or spamming the few attacks you do know will get you so far, but it won't help you beat the entire game.

The settings in which you fight are all very nice and varied even though Japan shows up quite a lot, the same goes for the fighter although (oddly enough) there aren't any Japanese in the roster. Who would you like to play as; the Indian guy with elastic arms, the schoolgirl with upper legs you can only get from bicycle pumps, the overconfident sumo wrestler/torpedo or the Green Goblin? There are roughly a dozen characters you can play as and every single one of them has his or her own map.

This game is a guaranteed favorite on parties (although the guy who plays as Dhalsim is going to end up with so many feet up his ass that he'll be coughing up shoelaces for three months), it's fast, it's chaotic and it's a lot of memorable fun. There is also a lot of satisfaction to be found in pulling off one of the special moves and making everybody go "wow".

There is an options menu where you can change quite a lot of the settings, even the difficulty can be changed (you can even put it on zero).

The Bad
I just really suck at fighting games, Super Smash Bros. aside, I just can't figure out how to play them. Each character has his or her own moves and you have to study all these special moves, people keep recommending me to use a joystick which is even more confusing then the normal SNES controller and that schoolgirl keeps kicking my butt. The only way I managed to make it as far as I did was to take Dhalsim and stick to the corners where I just spammed punches and kicks.

The game is all about travelling around the world and challenging fighters, but the design of the map and the locations of all the countries is completely cocked up. Here is a quick geography lesson; Brazil isn't located in Australia, There is only one Japan and America isn't an island in the sea above Japan.

The Bottom Line
This review is very hard for me to write because I just don't know what a good fighting game is supposed to look like. My only experience with them is from playing Super Smash Bros. which is so unique in it's gameplay that you can't use it as a proper comparison. I had fun with Street Fighter II, so the average gamer might have the same. Fans of the genre will sadly have to find their consumer advice somewhere else.