Super Street Fighter II

With all the news on the Internet about the upcoming Street Fighter IV and the release of Street Fighter II HD Remix for Xbox Live Arcade and the PS Network, it appears that Capcom's signature franchise is about the take the world by storm, again. Lord knows there's been no shortage of games in the series over the years, and the Genesis partook in all the fighting goodness too, with two separate releases that are still highly playable to this day. Staff writer Vince Thornburg stepped into the arena with the second game, Super Street Fighter II, which weighs in at forty megs, making it the largest Genesis cart ever made. Bruised, bloody, but victorious, he came back with a full review. Hadoken!

Bugger me Super Street Fighter 2 is awesome game.

"They pretty much just upgraded a look, fixed some sounds, added four characters, made some changes to the endings, but pretty much had the rest of the cast remain as they were before. If you were to do this today, you’d be lambasted before the game even hit stores. But Capcom released it, figuring, why mess with perfection?"


I seem to recall Capcom being lambasted because of their refusal to make a proper sequel to SF2. The press didn't (certainly not EGM, those SF2 whores) but reading letters to the magazine revealed that some were growing tired of what was being done with SF2.

I own this game on cartridge, yet ive never played it. maybe it doesnt work? I know i used to have the little LCD tiger handheld game thing when i was little.

I disagree a lot with this review. The sound is utter, utter tosh compared to the prequel (which I haven't played much, but heard on VGM). The graphics are pretty bad as well. The AI doesn't improve on the higher difficulty settings - instead, they just do more damage (totally unfair). I also read that it wasn't a great success - people were tired of SFII upgrades and new Super Street Fighter II Turbo was already on the way (or so they thought), so many carts never left the shelves. Still, it was very well written as always.

As an upgrade from Championship Edition, Super was in no way shape or form worth the money. It is, however, an improvement on Championship Edition and the pinnacle of Mega Drive fighters.

It's awesome when you take a break from these newer fighting games and get back to a classic SSFII (MD or SNES, whatever).
That's when you realize the power of the 16-bit era.
MD version was superior due to just one defining feature: the 6-button control pad.

This is Aarzak Claus bringing you some goodies:

"Super Street Fighter II" Comparison (SNES, Genesis, Game Boy Advance):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3d-4qIASuw

Game Pilgrimage's "Super Street Fighter II" Comparison (CPS2, SNES, Genesis):

http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/ssfii.htm


"Street Fighter II Champion Edition/Turbo" Comparison (PCE, SNES, Genesis):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM2p2suJqK8

Game Pilgrimage's: "Street Fighter II SCE/Turbo" Comparison (CPS1, SNES, Genesis):

http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/SFIIT.htm

"Street Fighter II Turbo" (actually a hack of the unreleased, unfinished Genesis CE port from early 1993) Gameplay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Cssq-m1TA


With that out of the way, my two cents on tha Genesis SSFII port:

While the differences in graphics and sound samples (NOT sound quality) between the 16-Bit ports of SCE/Turbo were almost negligable, the difference is much more apparent between the 16-Bit ports of SSFII. 40 MEGA POWER Vs. 32 MEGA POWER, slightly more parallax on the SNES, MUCH better color and color choices on the SNES, pretty close-to-CPS2-music on SNES, horrific, sub-SCE-resembling-Master System FM music on the Genesis, missing voice samples and animation on the SNES..............

The fact that SSFIIT had already been out by the time these ports were released in summer 1994, coupled with the fact that many were waiting for a Super Turbo port or tired of SFII altogether, resulted in these ports bombing in sales. If anything it sold more on Genesis, with the convenience of the 6-Button Pad and there only having been one previous SF2 title. In Japan the Super Fami SSFII apparently sold 1-2 million copies though.

EGM gave both ports near-average scores, particularly the Genny port which they gave two 6.0's to and highlighted that it didn't look/sound as good as the SNES port. In response/anger, Capcom pulled all of their ads from EGM for awhile.

Nice SSF2 comparison, though it doesn't show the options screens and obviosly you cant tell which game controls the best. I think the SNES version has a slight edge over MD and the GBA version is pretty disappointing. I used to own it.

On Genesis:

Special Champion Edition > SSFII.

No no no.

SSFII never rubbed me right. The sound was just horrendous (especially on the Super Nintendo version) and the new characters just didn't appeal to me.

Though for what it's worth I think it's still a great great game, I just prefer Championship Edition to it.

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Originally Posted by Melf

On Genesis:

Special Champion Edition > SSFII.

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IAWTA.

SSFII just seemed, no it was too ambitious for the Genesis hardware, while the SNES' superior color palette and sound suite helped it squeak by with a decent conversion. No shadow/hilight was gonna work wonders for this port!

According to Game Pilgrimage's comparison of the ports, the reason for the horrendously tinny music and sfx in the Genesis port is because Capcom tried to compose the music/sfx with digitized samples...........on an analog, FM synth-based sound suite. Even the CPS1's sound suite, superior to the Genny's (in most respects) struggled to do digitized sound.

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Originally Posted by Aarzak

the SNES' superior color palette and sound suite helped it squeak by with a decent conversion.

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#1 - The Genesis sound suite is closer to the CPS2 arcade hardware than the SNES is.

#2 - It sounds to me like the SNES version of Super Street Fighter 2 went overboard with the reverb. Reverb = bad (in almost all cases).

#3 - The arcade itself sounded like ass.

CPS2 has sample-based "Q-Sound" hardware, not the Yamaha FM-based sound hardware that the first revision of the CPS1 had. (CPS1 was also retrofitted with "Q-Sound" hardware late in its life, notably used in "The Punisher"). Ironically, SCE sounded closer to the CPS1 SF2's due to similar sound suites while SNES Turbo didn't, but it was the exact opposite for SSFII as the SPC700 and "Q-Sound" suites are both sample-based, making it possible for the SNES SSFII to sound closer to the coin-op.

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Originally Posted by Melf

On Genesis:

Special Champion Edition > SSFII.

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Agreed.
Special Champion Edition was better in both graphics and sound. The voices became even more scratchy and the reclouring of the backgrounds is just awefull. The 4 additional fighters don´t come close to the balancing of the original cast. IThe super specials and the combos are the only good things about SSF II. So I rate it lower than SCE.

Even Tempo, a cartridge, had Q-sound. Q-sound is nothing special at all in any way, shape or form.

I am very surprised to hear the SNES version is even worse than the MD version, except for the voice samples.

I can´t remember the sound, but visually the SNES-version is better than the MD-version (although still inferior to it´s predecessors), and gameplay-wise it´s equal.

The MD version has five speeds, the SNES version only four.

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Originally Posted by Joe Redifer

Even Tempo, a cartridge, had Q-sound. Q-sound is nothing special at all in any way, shape or form.

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I never said it was special, just that CPS2's sound hardware was based around "Q-Sound", and more importantly was SAMPLE-based which is one of its notable enhancements over the CPS1 (Faster 68000; from 10 to 16 Mhz, faster Z80 sound CPU; from 4 to 8 Mhz).

Capcom apparently tried to use digitized music/sfx on the Genesis music, and it just didn't work out or rather came out sounding like cack. It seriously sounds like Master System FM music in some spots.

But the Genesis port does contain most if not all of the coin-op's sound samples unlike the SNES port, and the voices and sfx while scratchy (not as scratchy as SCE though) sound clearer/crisper than the SNES' perenially reverb/muffled sound. But that's probably the price the SNES always paid for using digitized music/sfx. The Genny port also has music that plays through the rounds like the coin-op, while the SNES' music re-starts after every match. Also of note, the Genny has 4 star speeds while the SNES only has 3.

The SNES port's graphics whoops the Genny port on all fronts except for resolution and slight animation loss (on the Ryu intro mostly). Way more color, supposedly near or at the 256 color mark, better color choices, and (notable on the DAMN COMPARISON VIDEO I POSTED, it's not my creation though) more parallax on the stages.

But nobody cared none the less except for EGM and GamePro, as the ports bombed in sales and the minuscule improvements and high price point for a port of what even the developers themselves admitted was an incomplete upgrade (Super Turbo was originally to be the game to come out after Hyper Fighting, and Hyper Fighting was mostly created in the first place to curb the SF2 bootlegs, so the ideal Capcom SF2 release pattern would've/should've been: World Warrior>>>Champion Edition>>>Super Turbo) was not worth the investment.

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Originally Posted by Zebbe

The MD version has five speeds, the SNES version only four.

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Yeah, and SCE had 10 speeds. But who cares, the higher speeds are no fun to play anyway.

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Originally Posted by 108 Stars

Yeah, and SCE had 10 speeds. But who cares, the higher speeds are no fun to play anyway.

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the snes version went fast enough,the music suck in all versions and the Gba sucks most with its gameger sound.Gba sucks anyways their only a handful games on it that are good.The genesis version is a big dissapointment they always called it the inferior snes port.

i liked this one

even the new character fei long bruce lee wannebee
play this game even now o and street fighter alpha 3 that s the one and only best street fighter for me

Great review Vinny. I completely agree with pretty much everything you say. As a Street Fighter II addict, I'm truly jealous that you got to this review before me :D

I prefer MK... better sound and music.

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Originally Posted by acdc

i liked this one

even the new character fei long bruce lee wannebee
play this game even now o and street fighter alpha 3 that s the one and only best street fighter for me

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for me third strike on on DC with saturn controller=Godmode.

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Originally Posted by TmEE

I prefer MK... better sound and music.

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Sluggish controls and ugly graphics.

MK is unplayable. It was a fad because of its gore, and it only perpetuates thanks to nostalgia.

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Originally Posted by Genesis Knight

MK is unplayable. It was a fad because of its gore, and it only perpetuates thanks to nostalgia.

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This is a very true statement.

I like gore

I disagree, you inter-toads!

Mortal Kombat 2/Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3/Mortal Kombat Trilogy have a sizeable following and apart from their "gimmick" are highly playable, with many combo videos and (non-official) tournaments of the game having been made.

The recent 3D MK installments have more than made up for "Mortal Kombat 4", "Mortal Kombat Mythologies", "Mortal Kombat Annihilation" (the second movie), "Mortal Kombat: Special Forces" and "Mortal Kombat Advance", all of which damn near killed the franchise up until 2001.

So back off, or I'll dump a garbage truck full of every copy of every Genesis sports title on you!

Have they really? I pretty much gave up on the series after I rented MK4 and vomited.

Of course, I also had the flu, but it didn't help.

And again, I'm glad that most people pretty much agree here. If anything, I was basing it on the game itself, not how this started Capcom keeping Street Fighter II going for years and years.

I can't stand Mortal Kombat's graphics (on any system or arcade). They are atrocious. Also the whole game reeks of western programming which is generally quite bad even to this day.

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I pretty much gave up on the series after I rented MK4 and vomited. Of course, I also had the flu, but it didn't help.

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LOL.

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Mortal Kombat 2/Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3/Mortal Kombat Trilogy have a sizeable following...

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Again, nostalgia over a fad.

Mortal Kombat is the one of the most repugnant game series I have ever played. Crappy digitized graphics, terrible control and hair pullingly, scalp bleedingly frustrating gameply make for a mediocre and somewhat insanity inducing gaming experience.
Long live Street Fighter!.

I have ALWAYS despised the Mortal Kombat 2D games, and not just because I'm a SF2 addict. And while I'd love to say that the game sold on shock value alone, I do have a couple of friends who swear by it and do not know any fatalities.

Give credit where credits due: the last couple of 3D Mortal Kombat games have been pretty good. For 3D fighters at least.

I heard that Deception was supposed to be a pretty good 3D fighter. Then I played it, and learned otherwise. I guess it's better than MK4, but just because it's an improvement on utter shite doesn't make it good. It's mediocre at best, and that's being generous. The newer Mortal Kombat games have absolutely nothing on Virtua Fighter, Soul Calibur (1), or anything else. I dare say that even Tekken is slightly better.

Then again, I was never a fan of Mortal Kombat to begin with. The moves are dumb and the AI is ridiculously cheap. I can appreciate the fact that people wanted to rally around some sort of alternative to give Street Fighter II a big rival, but they should've chosen Samurai Shodown or something. Now that is a fighter that does a lot to distinguish itself from Street Fighter and is still awesome.

I'm still a fan of the old 2D games, with 2 being a personal fave. The first one pretty much is only around because it's Mortal Kombat, not because it's good.

I still pop open Trilogy for the PSX once in awhile, turn on the 1-button fatalities (cause I'm lazy) and hope I don't face Jade. It's still fun even if not as good as we once though it was.

Yeah, seriously - who would play a 3D MK when there's Soul Calibur II lying around? BTW, is there a 3D Samurai Shodown?