"Capcom's masterpiece"

In my most humble of opinions, this is the best Capcom fighting game out there. It has depth, deep game play, a nice amount of playable fighters, and to top it all off, some really sweet 2D graphics. This game does a good job of balancing out. Enough chat though...

Graphics: 9
Absolutely, the best 2D animation I have seen in a long time. Everybody moves fluidly, with great attention to detail. The stages are beautifully drawn, with nice details and good looking locales. My only complaint is stage swapping. Ugh, just because you change the color scheme a bit doesn't mean you can count it as a different stage. I hate Ryu's stage too, for some reason. WHY does he always have to be fighting on a roof. His SF2 Roof was mucho better in my opinion. Oh well, good stuff here.

Sound: 10
The sound is great. The audible slaps and grunts come through clearly, and sound really nice. I like how they redid the voices too. Hugo sounds a lot cooler now(''I'm number one!'') instead of sounding like a retard in 2nd Impact. Alex doesn't sound as much like Michael Jackson anymore either. I liked the old super initiating sound from 2nd impact better though. Sounded better then the somewhat electric sound in this game. But nothing to whine about. The music is great too (For the most part). Dudley's stage is my absolute favorite. The techno and rock beats fit into the game well.

Control: 10
Ahh, nice responsive controls. I like the joystick MUCH better though since I am used to arcade play. 360s and 720s with my fav character, Hugo, are a lot easier with the stick, but the controller works fine. Nice and Responsive.

Game play: 9
Balanced, deep, and easy to pick up, Capcom does a great job with the old Street Fighter formula. Parries add depth to the game, but annoying some people. Parrying is good though, I'm glad they traded that for air blocking. Every character gets new moves in this version, 5 new characters, it's just really good. I picked it up the day I found out it was out and was not disappointed in the least. So why did I give it a 9? Because TTT is the better fighting game. 3rd strike isn't far behind, but I'll always like Tekken I guess. This is fantastic though, I recommend it if you don't already have it.

Replay?
Of course you'll want to replay so you can try everybody out. There are plenty characters and it takes a loong tme to get really good at this game, so as long as you play at the arcade and enjoy 2 player fights, this game has staying power.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/14/00, Updated 12/14/00