Street Fighter II Turbo

"The first game that let us play as the Four Bosses"

Street Fighter 2 is an arcade fighting game that came out in 1991, shortly after 1991 Capcom released an upgrade to the original version called Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition, this version let you play as the Four Bosses.

At the time of the games release the only home port was Street Fighter 2 The World Warrior for the SNES. About 5 or 6 months after CE was released Capcom made an upgrade to combat the illegal hacks to Champion Edition called Street Fighter 2 Hyper Fighting, this version altered a few things and added faster speed to the game.

Capcom would release a home version to the SNES entitled 'Street Fighter II Turbo'; the game not only features the Normal (or Champion Edition mode); but the Turbo mode as well.

Normal mode is like the first game (World Warrior); but adds the four bosses, the speed remains the same as World Warrior, however players can now face each other in 'mirror matches'; two players fight each other wearing different outfits and can increase the skill in a match if your playing the same person.

Background colors have been changed such as in Ryu's stage it is now late at night (instead of early evening); and Guile's stage is now towards Sunset.

Players will face 12 opponents in single player mode, you defeat one after the other until you get to the games boss (M Bison); beat him and you see your characters ending sequence. Beat all 12 without continuing and you get a surprise ending.

There is a VS mode were players will fight each other in different matches, theres a Win/Loss/Draw column to calculate all the match results, you can battle each other to your hearts content (or until your tired of it); so the VS mode is always entertaining.

Normal mode isn't really that exciting as the speed is slow in the game (especially if your used to the later games such as Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo); the other game in this game is the Turbo mode, which I'll discuss below.

In the arcade the Hyper Fighting (or Turbo edition); was made by Capcom as their answer to the illegal hacks of their previous game, these hacks made you do a dragon punch in the air with a barrage of fireballs coming out, Ryu and Ken can also do a air hurricane kick which was not possible in the previous edition, so a year after Champ Edition Capcom introduced Turbo, a game with increased Speed, and a few added extras (Chun Li now has her own fireball); Some players could do things in previous versions to take advantage of the other player, in this version those options have been tweaked a bit to add balance.

Ryu and Ken now have an air hurricane kick, and a few other characters have their own new moves as well.

Turbo is my favorite choice for playing this game due to the speed setting (4 stars is the default difficulty, but you can use a code on the other controller to get 10 stars!); and is much more balanced than the other versions.

This game is pretty good if your into the Street Fighter series, and was considered by some players as the series strong point, the game goes for about $8 or $10 these days, but if you really like Street Fighter I'd pick it up, you can't go wrong with this one.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/21/09

Game Release: Street Fighter II Turbo (US, August 1993)