Street Fighter II

"Street Fighter II- To the arcade to the SNES bringing similar problems."

Street Fighter II was the game that supposedly ''revolutionizes fighting games.'' It features 8 playable fighters which each have 2 to 3 special moves a piece.

Graphics: The graphics to Street Fighter II are exactly similar to the arcade version except that the character models and backgrounds are more colorful which makes Street Fighter II's version on the Super NES much better looking than the arcade. However, the game still slows down when a special move lands on the opponent which makes absolutely no sense at all.

Sound: The highlight of Street Fighter II is its voice effects. Each character has his or her own individual sounds and there is commentary by an announcer for each round. It would have been nice if the announcer actually announced player names and the voice effects were not incredibly lame and repetitious especially if a player gets cheap by repeatedly doing projectiles. Otherwise, the various smacks and other sounds are acceptable.

Control: Street Fighter II revolves around having to do quarter to half rotations on the directional pad or charging down a certain button for 2 seconds and following it up by pressing two other buttons simultaneously to do a special move. This is a easy thing to do as the Super NES controller is able to handle a fighting game perspective much more better than the Genesis controller. However, you could be annoyed by using Zangief's moves as they mostly revolve around doing 360 rotations on the controller.

Gameplay: Street Fighter's Arcade mode has you fight the roster followed by fighting bosses Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison. You will also go through bonus rounds in between fights which are busting barrels, wrecking a car, and destroying gas cans spousing out fire. The mode kind of stinks since you are stuck with the same fighter when battling a human player until you lose. The VS mode offers a bit more variety as you can select any fighter you want after a match and the game keeps track of wins, losses, and draws. However, matches which consist of the same fighter facing one another seems to be a no-no unless you enter a secret code to enable the option.

Overall: If you wanted an arcade perfect version of Street Fighter II, you got your wish along with the same problems which plagued it. Street Fighter II could have been perfect on the Super NES if it had gotten rid of its slowdown, enabled boss fighters, and improved game speed on it a bit but sadly I'm disappointed for Capcom's job for Street Fighter II on the Super NES.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 12/10/01, Updated 12/10/01