Street Fighter EX2 Plus

"How many titles will it take for the game to have good graphics?"

SFEX2+

The second 3D Street Fighter is finally released on PSX after a disappointing first try. Can Capcom correct their mistakes and at last give us a nice and enjoyable title like in the days of 2D or will they yet again take out a rushed title ? The first try had been decent but suffered from bad graphics and a pretty lame soundtrack. Now that EX2 is out, can it make us forget the first one ? Read on to find out.

INTRO

After the quite good and lengthy intro featuring Ryu and Sagat who are as good friends as ever, you can choose your mode of play. The intro is pretty good but just by the looks of it, I immediately sensed that once again, this 3D port would suffer from bad graphics. The boat in the background which Akira probably meant to be extremely good and highly detailed is a blatant example of how the title seems to have been rushed.

The animation of two of the main characters made me think more of those crappy B series that nobody has heard of. The day I get to run like Ryu, I’ll eat my pants. Period ! Their animation is simply terrible and the drawings and outlines are really not up to Capcom’s reputation. OK, I know that Akira designed the game but heck, SF belongs to Capcom and they should have known better than to trust Akira. Oh, this makes me mildly suspicious unless…

EX2 ?

Once the game finally starts[since you’ll be skipping the intro the next times], you’ll probably be amazed by the cast. Capcom has done it again. No storyline for the sake of throwing in new characters on whom you don’t even know anything. Sure, adding new characters is always fun and interesting but where does the point lie if these characters just come in one single title and even 2 years after, people aren’t agreeing on how they came into the game and what their role really is ?!

This makes me talk of the plot, or should I say the absence of the plot. But anyway, I’m probably losing my time because Capcom have abandoned plots a long time ago. Correction, there wasn’t any good plot as long as I know of. Oh noooo, Mr Capcom thinks plot are only good for titles like Resident Evil and Dino Crisis. Wrong, Mr Capcom. Players love interesting storylines, even when the gamee’s only a beat-em-up ! Don’t go about expecting to find some of it here, you’ll most likely keep on searching for the rest of your life.

There are a lot of new characters in EX2 and luckily, everybody has his own style and just doesn’t fight alike. These new characters are Sharon who seems to come directly from the likes of RE or DC, Area who has a really weird name and moves too, Vulcano Rosso who isn’t in the least related to the popular Porco Rosso and Nanase, who isn’t stupid only by the name.

Older characters are back like Sagat, Blanka who’s supposed to be dead, Guile who’s finally gotten over the death of Charlie [reason sill unknown] and Balrog with his mask still on. Of course, the remaining crew consists of the cast of EX1. Garuda is stronger than ever but hey, where’s Akuma ? I do think it’s pointless to say who’s the boos since Capcom isn’t really good at creating new bosses. Just take the same ol’ M. Bison and let’s get on with it, would ya Capcom ?

HOW THE COLORS MINGLE TOGETHER : 5

The loading screens with the pics of the characters are absolutely fantastic. The character select screen is top-notch. The pics of the characters are among the best I’ve seen. I like the lay-out of the menus very much and the way Akira has designed the before-matches screen is great with those silhouettes and the format. Too bad the good points stop here…

It seems Capcom and Akira haven’t been able to correct the mistakes of the previous title. The game still suffers from those lame graphics. Yeah, they’re slightly better than in EX but heck, it should be or I would probably have bashed this game like nobody else. But there’s still much to be done here and I have no doubt you’ll agree with me upon playing the game.

The characters can be described in only one term : ugly. As bad as in the PSX port of DoA, possibly even worse ! And this is again proof that the port of an Arcade hit to a 32-bit system can sometimes be catastrophic due to mishandling of the visual effects. [Read my Hardware review !] Either the console is not powerful enough or the programmers were sleeping. Sadly, the second reason seems more appropriate here because there are some ports which are excellent in the likes of Tekken 3 or Soul Blade.

Their design just plain sucks and make me think more of some rehashed sprites from those crappy 3D beat-em-ups that nobody’s even heard of and that quickly disappeared. The backgrounds are even worse with apparently no light effects or no details whatsoever. The airport stage is a blatant example of this with its weird-looking colors. So weird that your eyes will even be hurt after a few seconds but too bad, you can’t do anything about it.

Akira has the merit to trying new things but trying isn’t enough. The mist in Pullum’s stage is a good idea but I wonder who worked on that. Possibly a 2-year old kid. Really, I was deceived with the graphics of this game.

ONOMATOPOEIA : 6

Good sound effects, decent soundtrack, crappy voice-acting. Ken’s voice when he pulls his moves and Ken’s voice when he’s hit seem to belong to two different persons. About the same thing for Garuda. Garuda is supposed to be more of a monster a bit like Blanka and you get this impression when he attacks and does everything else that suits him so much. How the hell can he talk like a normal human being in his win poses then ?

On the whole, the voice-acting in this game is bad. There are some good points though but not enough to make me forget about the crap ones. Chun Li’s voice is particularly annoying and Akari was stupid enough to keep the same person for Blair…

BADMASH X : 7

The control is so good that you’ll even pull super moves when you only want to do a special move. This can be helpful for beat-em-up newbies but since most of us are already vets after playing every possible beat-em-up, it is no longer good. The control should have been tighter. The game is like MvC, button-friendly with all types of combos, pseudo aerial waves and the likes. So, having such a control is more of a drawback.

The even worse fact is that since I’m a SNK player, I’m more used to tight controls where you need to know what you’re doing. This isn’t the case here, just mash the buttons and you’ll win. This concept may have made MvC popular but for a game that stated out as the pioneer to the genre, I find this really sad. Mashers will probably love this game and it’s flashy too !

2 hours or 2 days : 8

Thankfully, Akira again manages to save its ass by giving the game a marvellous gameplay although I wouldn’t be so sure about the replay value. There are still 2 bonus games in Arcade mode, 2 of those and the second one is really fun. I even find myself playing the game just for this part sometimes. The Trial Mode will at last get you to use your skills instead of your button mashing abilities [which everybody has by the way but which some players have managed to discard, like me ! :)].

And the good cast ensures that a lot of time will go by before you grow tired of the game. Trying to master the Trial Mode with every single one of them will take some time unless you grow tired of it beforehand. But still, EX2 has a very good gameplay and this isn’t so surprising coming from Capcom and Akira.

UNDERNONE : 7

The game has some flaws but still manages to be fun and interesing thanks to its gameplay and dozens of combos. For the combo-maniac that I am, this can only be good and I’m sure you’ll be mighty interested too. But don’t expect too much from EX2 though, it has the same flaws as the prequel and doesn’t feel too well in the other categories. But heck, you’ll still have fun with it and it won’t cost you anything to try it.

[For the record, this review was written by a hardcore SNK fan. If I gave it a 7, then you know what you have to do now…]

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/30/01, Updated 11/09/02