Street Fighter II Turbo

"A great fighter..... only better one for the SNES is Super Street Fighter 2"

Mortal Kombat, take note: this is how a fighting game should be made. Street Fighter 2 Turbo is the second SNES installment in the series, and this one boasts 12 selectable characters: Ryu, Ken, Chun Li, Balrog, Zangief, Guile, Blanka, Dhalsim, Sagat, E. Honda, Vega and M. Bison. Each character has a wide variety of moves and is better against some than others. Each fighter has their own area, such as Chun Li's marketplace, Guile's airport or Dhalsim's Indian area. One or two players fight in a one-on-one battle, two out of three falls. In the one player mode, one player goes through all the others to fight M. Bison in the end.

Graphics: 8/10

Very good. They're more cartoony than Mortal Kombat games, which use digitzed graphics, but I like them better. The backgrounds are pretty good as well. There are quite a few character animations and reactions as they win.

Sound: 9/10

Lots of shouting, battle cries, and other special effects, such as the elephants making noise in Dhalsim's stage. The music is top notch, with a different track for each fighter, and all of them very well done.

Gameplay: 9/10

Classic Street Fighter gameplay. There is a heavy reliance on projectile attacks and less on combos. Each character has a wide variety of moves, and the characters themselves are varied nicely. Control is simple for the most part. The D-Pad moves you left or right, and makes you jump or duck. The other buttons are hard, medium and soft kicks and punches. Projectile attacks like fireballs and special attacks like the Dragon Uppercut are executed by a combination of sweeping the D-Pad and using the buttons. The game gets pretty hard on the one player mode, but not too hard to be considered a negative. The two player mode is very fun, and when two people play each other wins and losses are recorded.

Replay: 9/10

Fun to play a friend, and the one player mode is well done also. Since the control is good and the computer not too cheap, you won't get frustrated easily with the game.

Overall: 8/10

The second best SNES Street Fighter game, behind Super Street Fighter 2, but still a very good fighting game. I would recommend you play it. It can be found very cheap now, so it's not a big risk. If you like fighting games, you're bound to love this one.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99