Super Street Fighter II: Turbo Revival

"The best fighting game ever made returns almost completely intact on GBA."

Super Street Fighter II Turbo is considered to be the high point of the Street Fighter series by many fans. Years on and now on a handheld the game is still golden and one of the Gameboy Advance's most fun games.

Graphics
Though the Gameboy Advance is apparently more powerful than the SNES the graphics in Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival appear almost but not quite as well done as the SNES game (this may just appear to be so because of the GBAs small screen however). That said, the difference is hardly noticed and considering the game is on a hand held machine, the fact that the graphics are actually of this quality is amazing. The characters themselves look great, as do their animations. Most of the backgrounds are the same as the previous SNES/arcade versions though a few have been changed such as Guile's army base and Chun Li's China stage. The backgrounds look just like their previous version counterparts in detail. The portraits of the characters have been redrawn which though being a nice bit of extra work from Capcom is actually in some ways a bad idea too because it takes away from the nostalgia of the original character portraits. The character select screen and world map have been changed which is sad since they could have been done on GBA and Capcom only changed them for the sake of change it seems, when the originals would have been preferred by some fans. Overall, this game is one of the most graphically impressive games on the GBA.

Sound

This game sounds 5 times better with headphones so that you can get the stereo sound playback. In mono (no headphones) the music sounds quite bad. What's great is that all the original character stage music is back. The tracks do not sound as good as they did in previous versions of the game but they are definitely not bad and for a GBA game, are impressive (at least using headphones). The original Street Fighter theme plays during characters selection. Overall, decent sound.

Gameplay
This is where Street Fighter always shined and thankfully the gameplay is virtually the same as the SNES/arcade. After a few runs through arcade, you will start to remember why this game used to so much fun. It's extremely well balanced and the many close and exciting matches you will have make it a joy to play. The controls are the same as the SNES version layout except with a minor difference to cater for the GBAs lack of two extra buttons the SNES pad had. L is heavy punch, R is heavy kick, B when tapped lightly is light punch, and when pressed normally is medium punch. The A buttons acts similarly for light/medium kick. The specials moves are pretty straight forward to pull off even with the tiny controller pad. Blisters may occur on the left thumb during initial play but they become a little more resistant after extended play^_^. To play two player two cartridges are needed, but the game is a great deal of fun this way (and the main reason SF was so popular) especially if both players are long time Street Fighter players.

Other
There are only a few negatives and these can be likely be explained by Capcom's laziness rather than any problems the GBA has. First of all, in the instruction manual it is written that if you complete the arcade mode with a character you can witness a ''spectacular ending'' (a quote from the manual). This is laughable considering you get ONE still picture and a few lines of text. However, no one plays Street Fighter for the riveting story line so this not a big issue. Other than that, the after fight comments by the characters are almost always the same line. Not only that but there is only a picture of the winning pose of the victorious character. None of those pictures of the beaten up loser! That's a shame. Also it appears there is no way to enter your initials after the game is beaten so you must remember your high score. This seems like an oversight.(If it is possible to record initials, please email me so I can correct this). Also, it seems that Balrog's, Vega's and Bison's victory comments are mixed up (since Balrog is called M.Bison, Vega is called Balrog, and M.Bison is calle Vega in Japan and someone at Capcom USA screwed up). All of this considered, since the gameplay is so good, these missing pieces (while are still missed) do not affect the game so drastically so as to make it bad.

Conclusion

I have constantly kept comparing Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival to older versions on the SNES/arcade. If you have not played those earlier games I would highly doubt you would be able to get into Street Fighter now, on a portable system. It truly is a masterpiece but to really admire it, you would have had to play it before the 32 bit/3D era came about. Street Fighter was breathtaking in various versions in 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994. New players just wouldn't get what the fuss is about now. If you are a previous Street Fighter player however, I suggest you buy this game. You will remember the great times from the past. This is an almost complete restoration for a handheld and the most important aspect in SF, the gameplay, manages to break it's way through brilliantly here. While mashing away at the buttons/D-pad to pull of the specials will inevitably have your GBA tilting from side to side and the view may be hampered at times, it's still great fun to play. This game as had a much better translation than Mario Kart for instance even though Mario Kart is good too. If you have a friend who has this game, be ready for some cool 2 player bouts. After so many years it's great to see that Street Fighter II still has it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/03/01, Updated 11/03/01