Capcom wins: PERFECT
Written: Aug 02 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Gameplay,4 new fighters,music
Cons: 6 Button controller required
The Bottom Line: With the best possible controller of era, and the most complete version of the game for the time, SSF2 should be owned by all fans of the genre and series
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| flash-hammer's Full Review: Super Street Fighter II for Sega Genesis |
Super Streetfighter 2 was the last of Capcom's highly regarded Streetfighter games released for the Sega Genesis/Megadrive. While the Super Nes was treated to a port of Alpha 2, the MD was deemed too past it for a version of that title.
The game's main difference between itself and the previously released Streetfighter 2:Special Champion Edition is the inclusion of the 4 new challengers. The most famous of the 4 is Cammy, the amnesiac MI5 agent with mysterious links to M.Bison, who has rose to the highest level of popularity out of all of the new challengers, probably due to the fact her costume has a thong rear, an assett she displays if she wins a fight. Next up is Fei Long, a Hong Kong action star touted as the new Bruce Lee by movie critics. Dee Jay is a Jamaican kickboxer to whom fighting is only a hobby, and his main passion being music, the beat of which he fights to. The new challengers are rounded out by Thunder Hawk (T.Hawk), a hulk of a Native American out to reclaim his tribe's land from Bison's clutches.
The story is the same as previous incarnations of SF2. There is an international fighting tournament to decide who is the 'World Warrior'. 8 (now 12)competitors from around the world have entered, and once the last one of them is standing, they will have to face up to the 4 Grand Masters, led by the evil militaristic M.Bison, to take the title.
The game is a one-on-one fighter, in which the aim is to win two out of three rounds of combat. This can be accomplished via the regular selection of punches and kicks, but the real key to success is each character's special moves.
The controls for the game on the regular 3-Button controller look like this: A is Weak punch, B Medium punch and C strong punch. Pressing start changes these to weak,medium and strong kick respectively.
Naturally, this system is as useless as it sounds, and a 6-Button pad of some variety is necessary, with Sega's own one being the best I have dealt with. On it, A,B and C control the three levels of kicks and X,Y and Z control the three levels of punch. On this controller, the controls are perfect. There was never a problem of responsiveness with the original pad, and with enough buttons to allocate all the required commands to, the game is a joy. The fact it uses 6 face buttons instead of 4 and two shoulders as well as the 8-pointed D-Pad make the 6-Button Sega pad better than Nintendo's Super Nes controller for the game, because now you can throw out all of your special moves at all the possible strengths without any problems.
Special moves are performed in one of three ways. One is the rolling of the thumb along the D-Pad in a smooth motion. The most famous of these is rolling from pressing down to pressing forward, which when performed in conjunction with a punch button with Ryu or Ken makes them throw a 'Hadouken' or fireball.
The second way is to press a direction (eg Back) and hold it for 2 seconds before quickly hitting the opposite direction and an attack button. The final way is the most simple. Some characters (E.Honda, Chun Li, Blanka) have attacks that are performed simply by mashing down on a certain button repeatedly.
Graphically, the game is very good, with the stage backgrounds being full of animations, and the fighters themselves looking great. While some of the animation has been lost in transition from the arcade to the 16-Bit console, the game still looks great for its age and still stands up well today.
The character portraits have been given a changing, and while most of them are undoubtedly better, it has to say that they lack some of the cheesy charm the originals had.
The sound in the game is also pretty good, if not up to par with the Super Nintendo version. The voices arent as good, but they still do the job, and it isnt like they are really saying anything all that important anyway. The music is still amazing, but sadly the 4 new challengers theme tunes arent up to the same outrageously high standard of the original fighters, with only Fei Longs sweeping theme coming close.
Like all Streetfighter games, and Capcom 2D fighters in general, where the game earns the majority of its score is in the gameplay. As well as the default arcade, or Super as it is called here, and versus modes, the game also offers a few other game types to keep you playing. Amongst these is an 8-Man tournament and an 8 on 8 team battle mode. These help add replay value in multiplayer to a game that really needed no help in that department, seeing as it features one of the undisputably best fighting engines in any game ever. The collision detection is near spot on, the game's speed is adjustable, and this version seems to have a slight edge over the Super Nintendo version in the way of speed. While playing that version, I occasionally found it a bit sluggish, but I have no such complaints to offer for the Sega version.
In case you dont know, the thing that separated SF2 from every other fighter to come before it was that nearly all the characters had their own distinctive sets of moves and strengths and weaknesses. I say nearly all, because to begin with Ryu and Ken were identical in all but appearance. However, for Super, the two have recieved changes to their movesets to help make them more distinct from one another. Ken's Shoryuken now has a longer range, and if performed with Fierce punch causes the enemy to burst into flames. Ryu has gained a second Hadouken that causes the enemy to burst into flames, and Ken's Hurricane Kick moves faster than Ryus.
While Dee Jay is a bit similar to Guile, the other new challengers bring totally new movesets and playing styles to the game, helping spice up the already heated match ups.
The game was also the first, to my knowledge, to bring up any sort of combo meter. This is basically text that appears when you perform a combination of attacks upon your opponent, and tells you how many hits you have connected. While it doesnt sound like anything major, a lot of games since have used it.
The game, like all incarnations of SF2, shines in that not only does it have single player value, with each of the characters having their own endings, but it has multiplayer play in spades. No matter how many times I buy it , I never tire of SF2. And neither do my friends. Or my sister. Or anyone else who plays it. The game has a multiplayer that seems to truly capture the imagination of everyone who plays it, leading to some of the best fights you will ever see and experience on a console.
The big question upon its release was if it was worth buying if you already owned Special Champion edition, and while at the time I would have been unsure, nowadays, when it is going incredibly cheap, I think everyone should. If you rate yourself as any type of gamer, chances are you have enjoyed SF2 at some point, and you should own at least one version of it. Despite the fact I have given all the other versions of the game I own 5 stars, providing you have a 6 Button pad or arcade stick, I would rate this as the best version, mainly due to the quality of Sega's 6 Button pad. Sadly, if you only have 3 button pads, and cant get 6'ers, I would be less reluctant to jump into the game. 6 Buttons really are needed. But should you have them, I would Buy this now. The 6 Button MD pad is the second best pad ever for playing Capcom fighters (with the best being the similar Saturn Mark 2 controller), and this is the final version of SF2 for the Megadrive/Genesis, so this is the one you want to go for.
Other Streetfighter Reviews
Streetfighter 2:Special Champion Edition for Sega Genesis
Streetfighter 2 for Super Nintendo
Streetfighter 2: Turbo for Super Nintendo
Super Streetfighter 2 for Super Nintendo
Super Streetfighter 2 Turbo: Revival for Gameboy Advance
Recommended:
Yes
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flash-hammer
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